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THE -GIFT- OF 
IM  M  ORTALTT^V^ 


Charles  •  Lewis 


Slattery 


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WHY  WE  MAY  BELIEVE  IN  LIFE  AFTER 
DEATH.  By  Charles  Edward  Jefferson, 
igii. 

THREE  LORDS  OF  DESTINY.  By  Samuel 
McChord  Crothers.     1913. 

IS  CONSCIENCE  AN  EMOTION?  By  Hast- 
ings Rashdall.     1914. 

THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY:  A  STUDY 
IN  RESPONSIBILITY.  By  Charles  Lewis 
Slattery,  D.D.     1915. 

HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 

BOSTON   AND   NEW   YoRK 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 


Eapmonti  f .  Wtat  JHcmortal  lettureg 

THE  GIFT 
OF  IMMORTALITY 

A  Study  in  Responsibility 


BY 

CHARLES  LEWIS  SLATTERY,  D.D. 

M 

RECTOR  OF  6RACB  CHURCH  IN  NEW  YORK 


BOSTON   AND   NEW   YORK 

HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 

(Xhe  itiitetj^itie  ^tt^^  Camliritige 

1916 


t    t  >  i 


> 


->  •  * 


>  ^ ' 


» ^  * 


COPYRIGHT,  X916,  BY  CHARLES  LEWIS  SLATTXRY 
ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED 

Published  April  iQid 


PREFATORY  NOTE 

This  volume  represents  the  fourth  of  the  se- 
ries of  Raymond  F.  West  Memorial  Lectures  at 
the  Leland  Stanford  Junior  University.  These 
lectures  were  delivered  on  September  30  and 
October  i  and  3,  19 15,  by  Rev.  Charles  Lewis 
Slattery,  D.D.,  rector  of  Grace  Church  in 
New  York  City,  author  of  The  Master  of 
the  Worlds  Life  Beyond  Life^  The  Light 
Within^  etc.  The  conditions  of  the  lectureship 
are  set  forth  in  the  following  letter  from  its 
founders :  — 

In  memory  of  our  beloved  son,  Raymond 
Frederic  West,  a  student  in  Leland  Stanford 
Junior  University,  who  was  drowned  in  Eel 
River,  in  California,  on  January  18,  1906,  be- 
fore the  completion  of  his  college  course,  we  wish 
to  present  to  the  trustees  and  authorities  of  the 
Leland  Stanford  Junior  University,  at  Palo  Alto, 
California,  the  honored  Alma  Mater  of  our  son, 
the  sum  of  ten  thousand  dollars  ($10,000),  to  be 

V 


336138 


PREFATORY  NOTE 

held  as  a  fund  in  perpetual  trust,  for  the  estab- 
lishment of  a  lectureship  on  a  plan  similar  to  the 
Dudleian  Lectures  and  the  Ingersoll  Lectures  at 
Harvard  University. 

By  this  plan,  in  each  collegiate  year,  or  on  each 
alternate  year,  at  the  discretion  of  the  Board  of 
Trustees,  from  one  to  three  lectures  shall  be  given 
on  some  phase  of  this  subject;  ''Immortality, 
Human  Conduct,  and  Human  Destiny." 

Such  lectures  shall  not  form  a  part  of  the  usual 
college  or  university  course,  nor  shall  they  be  de- 
livered by  any  professor  or  instructor  in  active 
service  in  the  institution.  Such  lecturer  may  be 
a  clergyman  or  a  layman,  a  member  of  any  eccle- 
siastical organization,  or  of  none,  but  he  should 
be  a  man  of  the  highest  personal  character  and 
of  superior  intellectual  endowment.  He  shall  be 
chosen  by  the  Faculty  and  the  Board  of  Trustees 
of  said  University  in  such  manner  as  the  Board  of 
Trustees  may  determine,  but  the  appointment 
in  any  case  shall  be  made  at  least  six  months 
before  the  delivery  of  said  lectures. 

The  above  sum  is  to  be  safely  invested,  and  the 
interest  thereof  is  to  be  divided,  at  the  discretion 
of  the  Board  of  Trustees,  into  two  parts,  the  one 

vi 


PREFATORY  NOTE 

an  honorarium  to  the  lecturer,  the  other  for  the 
publication  of  the  said  lectures  or  the  gratuitous 
distribution  of  a  number  of  copies  of  the  same 
if  published  by  the  author. 

The  manuscript  of  the  course  of  lectures  shall 
become  the  property  of  the  University,  and  shall 
be  published  by  the  University  unless  some  other 
form  of  publication  is  more  acceptable. 

The  course  of  lectures  shall  be  known  as  the 
"  Raymond  F.  West  Memorial  Lectures  on  Im- 
mortality, Human  Conduct,  and  Human  Des- 
tiny." 

F.  W.  WEST, 
MARY  B.  WEST. 
Seattle,  Wash., 
January  i8^  igio. 


CONTENTS 

I.  The  Responsibility  of  the  Indi- 
vidual TO  Immortality    •     .     •       X 

II.  The  Responsibility  of  the  World 

TO  Immortality 7^ 

III.  The  Responsibility  op  God  for 

Immortality   .     •     •     •    •    .    .156 


.     J    '  .*     * 


THE    GIFT 
OF    IMMORTALITY 


I 


THE   RESPONSIBILITY   OF   THE   INDI- 
VIDUAL  TO    IMMORTALITY 


'  There  are  three  roads  by  which  one 
may  approach  the  belief  in  immortality. 
The  first  is  the  road  of  argument.  We 
are  all  convinced  that  thus  far,  in  a  sense 
which  can  be  scientifically  measured, 
the  world  has  not  discovered  an  infalli- 
ble proof  of  immortal  life.  We  cannot 
place  immortality  among  such  estab- 
lished scientific  facts  as  gravitation.  It 
belongs  to  another  stratum  of  human 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

convictions.  We  must  always  have  a 
large  element  of  faith  in  order  to  rely 
upon  the  expectation  of  immortality. 
But  faith  is  not  irrational :  reasons  for  our 
faith  ought  to  be  encouraged.  There- 
fore, though  we  cannot  prove  immor- 
tality in  any  scientific  or  mathematical 
fashion,  we  may  reason  out  its  exceed- 
ing probability.  We  may,  indeed,  make 
it  seem  so  probable  that  for  our  practi- 
cal reason  we  may  call  it  proved.  The 
road  which  we  travel  in  this  process  is 
the  road  of  argument. 

Another  road  by  which  we  may  ap- 
proach the  belief  in  immortality  is  im- 
agination. This  is  the  road  on  which 
great  poets  fare.  The  poets  from  time 
to  time  have  dared  to  lift  the  veil,  and, 
by  ecstatic  vision,  have  described  what 
they  have  felt  to  be  the  truth  about  the 

2 


f  RESPONSIBILITY  OF  INDIVIDUAL 

life  beyond  our  present  stage.  John  of 
Patmos,  Bernard  of  Cluny,  Dante  of 
Florence,  John  Henry  Newman,  and 
many  another  have  left  the  world  their 
inspiring  record.  They  attempt  no  argu- 
ment, they  scarcely  ask  assent  to  their 
words.  They  tell,  in  picturesque  and 
figurative  language,  what  they  see  and 
feel;  and  there  they  leave  their  account 
of  the  immortal  life.  It  is  the  road  of 
imagination. 

The  third  road  by  which  we  may  ap- 
proach the  belief  in  immortality  is  the 
road  of  practical  experience.  Here  the 
life  beyond  death  is  assumed  to  be  what 
the  theologians  and  poets  declare  it  to 
be.  The  supreme  question  is,  What 
efTect  does  a  conviction  of  immortality 
have  upon  this  life  which  we  are  now 
living?  The  moment  we  set  foot  upon 

3 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

this  road  we  know  that  it  is  no  highway 
through  the  clouds;  it  is  hard  and  firm, 
a  dusty  and  noisy  thoroughfare,  with 
which  we  have  daily  familiarity.  We 
may  discover  at  length  that  to  live  as  if 
there  were  immortal  life  stretching  out 
before  us  is  to  give  a  new  sense  of  cer- 
tainty to  all  our  convictions  and  hopes. 
In  case  the  hypothesis,  when  put  to  the 
practical  test,  should  prove  to  have  a 
beneficial  effect  upon  us,  we  should  have 
this  practical  reason  for  trusting  the  hy- 
pothesis to  be  true.  Thus,  in  a  way, 
we  should  be  gaining  material  for  both 
the  philosopher  and  the  poet,  though 
we  ourselves  be  plodding  along  in  the 
paths  of  everyday  life.  ' 

It  is  this  third  road — the  road  of 
practical  experience  —  which  I  purpose 
to  travel  in  these  lectures.  I  ask  you  to 

4 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  INDIVIDUAL 

reflect  upon  the  responsibilit}^  which  a 
belief  in  immortality  throws  back  upon 
our  present  life,  here  and  now;  first, 
upon  our  lives  as  individuals;  then, upon 
our  corporate  life  in  human  society;  and, 
finally,  upon  our  lives  as  related  to  God. 

II 

The  first  question  to  ask  is  whether 
it  is  more  than  a  pious  fancy  that  belief 
in  immortality  has  any  effect  upon  our 
earthly  life.  The  preliminary  consider- 
ation is  whether  the  people  who  think 
that  they  believe  in  immortality  really 
believe  in  it.  I  have  not  the  least  doubt 
that  a  host  of  people  who  would  say  in- 
stantly that  of  course  they  believed  in 
a  life  after  death,  do  not  really  believe 
in  it  at  all.  That  is,  they  are  so  absorbed 
in  the  busy  lives  which  they  are  lead- 

S 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

ing,  and  thus  far  they  have  been  so  free 
from  dangerous  illness  and  from  blind- 
ing bereavement,  that  they  have  not 
really  faced  the  subject  It  has  been 
lying  among  the  remote  dreams  of  hu- 
manity, like  Church  unity  and  perma- 
nent peace  for  the  world,  which  make 
no  demands  on  one's  immediate  faith. 
As  they  expect  to  get  on  very  well 
without  the  assurance  of  Church  unity 
or  universal  peace,  so  they  are  not  truly 
depending  upon  immortality:  they  are 
content,  as  they  often  say,  to  live  one 
life  at  a  time. 

Now,  when  a  man  really  believes  in 
immortality,  his  belief  is  of  such  a  na- 
ture that  he  does  not  wait  to  be  asked 
whether  he  believes  in  a  future  life;  he 
proclaims  it.  He  may  proclaim  it  in 
words,  after  the  manner  of  other  enthu- 

6 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  INDIVIDUAL  ' 

siasts;  or  he  may,  because  of  the  depth 
of  his  feeling,  say  little  about  it,  and 
leave  the  belief  to  be  proclaimed  in 
deeds.  The  late  F.  W.  H.  Myers,  through 
interest  in  psychic  research,  became 
convinced,  in  what  he  thought  a  scien- 
tific way,  that  life  goes  on  after  death. 
It  was  not  with  him  a  hope,  a  trust,  a 
faith;  it  was  what  he  believed  to  be  full 
evidence  tested  by  the  senses.  With  the 
manner  by  which  he  gained  this  assur- 
ance I  have  now  nothing  to  do.  You 
may  think  that  he  was  grossly  self- 
deceived.  All  I  insist  upon  is  that  you 
grant  that  in  Myers  you  have  an  exam- 
ple of  a  man  who  had  suddenly  awaked 
to  a  genuine  conviction  of  immortality. 
Now,  what  difference  did  this  convic- 
tion make  ?  Let  his  friend  William 
James  give  the  answer:  "  Myers's  char- 

7 


s 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

acter  .  .  .  grew  stronger  in  every  par- 
ticular. .  .  .  Brought  up  on  literature 
and  sentiment,  something  of  a  court- 
ier, passionate,  disdainful,  and  impatient 
naturally,  he  was  made  over  again  from 
the  day  when  he  took  up  psychical  re- 
search seriously.  He  became  learned 
in  science,  circumspect,  democratic  in 
sympathy,  endlessly  patient,  and  above 
all,  happy.  The  fortitude  of  his  last 
hours  touched  the  heroic,  so  completely 
were  the  atrocious  sufferings  of  his  body 
cast  into  insignificance  by  his  interest 
in  the  cause  he  lived  for.  When  a  man's 
pursuit  gradually  makes  his  face  shine 
and  grow  handsome,  you  may  be  sure 
it  is  a  worthy  one.  •  .  .  Myers  kept 
growing  ever  handsomer  and  stronger- 
looking."  This  is  an  illustration  of  what 
must  happen  to  every  man  when,  for 

8 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  INDIVIDUAL 

one  reason  or  another,  he  passes  from 
no  faith,  or  a  conventional  faith,  in  im- 
mortality, into  a  robust  and  vital  faith. 
It  makes  a  difference  in  this  life. 

Sometimes  this  faith  may  be  none  the 
less  real  even  when  it  is  not  conspicu- 
ously dwelt  upon:  it  may  be  subcon- 
scious, the  inheritance  of  one's  ancestry 
and  early  teaching.  It  may  be  assumed 
in  the  same  silent  way  in  which  we  as- 
sume our  power  to  breathe.  This  is  the 
sort  of  faith  in  immortality  which  we 
find  in  reverent  childhood.  Last  winter 
two  children  were  sent  from  a  home 
where  their  father  lay  dead,  that  they 
might  be  spared  association  with  death 
and  remember  their  father  only  alive. 
On  the  way  to  the  country  home  which 
was  to  receive  them,  they  stopped  to 
buy  flowers.  These  they  sent  back;  and 

9 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

in  each  box  were  sealed  envelopes  con- 
taining obviously  quite  long  letters  ad- 
dressed: *'To  Father  from  Mary.  Not 
to  be  opened  ";  "  To  Father  from  John- 
Not  to  be  opened."  There  they  had 
doubtless  written  their  love  with  the 
childlike  faith  that  in  some  way  their 
father  would  know.  This  is  a  faith  in 
immortality  quite  unlike  the  faith  which 
Myers  acquired;  but  it  has  the  same 
depth  of  conviction,  the  same  power  to 
issue  in  actual  life,  here  and  now. 

In  distinction  from  this  assumption 
of  the  fact  of  immortality  is  the  hypoth- 
esis of  Immanuel  Kant.  Kant,  with  his 
cold  reason,  could  find  no  adequate 
proof  of  immortality.  But  he  announced 
in  his  "  Critique  of  Practical  Reason  " 
that  immortality  is  "the  practically  nec- 
essary condition  of  a  duration  adequate 

ID 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  INDIVIDUAL 

to  the  complete  fulfilment  of  the  moral 
law";  therefore  he  would  live  as  if 
he  were  immortal.  For  one  with  rigid 
habits  this  hypothesis  of  Kant's  might 
perhaps  issue  in  a  character  free  of 
blemishes.  But  you  cannot  imagine  any 
character  so  inspired  as  having  any  en- 
thusiasm or  dash.  You  could  be  sure 
that  Dr.  Kant  would  take  his  afternoon 
walk  at  exactly  the  same  hour  every 
afternoon,  with  the  watchful  Lampe 
and  the  umbrella  following  after;  you 
could  be  sure  that  he  would  make  due 
and  generous  provision  for  those  de- 
pendent upon  him;  but  you  would  not 
expect  Konigsberg  to  be  thrilled  with 
the  news  that  Dr.  Kant  had  ever  gone 
out  of  his  way  to  do  an  unexpected  deed 
of  heroism  or  kindness.  There  are  many 
excellent  people,  not  at  all  in  the  rank  of 

II 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

Kant,  having  no  tinge  of  philosophical 
analysis,  who  are  holding  what  they 
believe  their  faith  in  immortality  sim- 
ply as  an  hypothesis.  It  has  not  gripped 
them.  They  amiably  and  earnestly  try 
to  live  in  such  a  way  that  if  immortal- 
ity should  turn  out  to  be  true  they  would 
not  be  hopelessly  discredited  after  the 
dark  corner  was  turned.  Immortality 
is  only  a  serious  speculation. 

On  the  threshold  of  this  discussion, 
therefore,  it  is  important  to  make  sure 
that  the  belief  in  immortality  of  which 
we  are  thinking  is  a  thorough-going 
conviction,  not  an  ethereal  mist  float- 
ing on  the  surface  of  our  minds.  Before 
a  man  can  expect  this  belief  to  influ- 
ence his  life  he  must  inquire  sternly 
whether  he  sincerely  is  relying  upon  a 
future  beyond  death.    Has  he,  for  ex- 

12 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  INDIVIDUAL 

ample,  the  same  degree  of  certainty 
which  a  man  has  who  believes  that  he 
has  had  communication  with  persons 
whose  bodies  are  dead?  Has  he,  by 
any  means  whatever,  reached  a  conclu- 
sion as  definite  as  that  which  Myers  at- 
tained? It  is  with  the  assumption  that 
there  are  men  in  the  world  who  have 
this  utter  persuasion  that  we  may  in- 
vestigate the  present  results  of  a  belief 
in  the  immortal  life. 

Ill 

In  the  remainder  of  this  lecture  I  shall 
describe  four  ways  in  which  a  belief  in 
immortality  affects  the  earthly  life  of  an 
individual.  The  results  are  such  results 
as  can  be  studied  in  the  lives  of  those 
whose  faith  in  a  continued  existence 
has,  for  any  reason,  become  sharp  and 

13 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

intense.  They  are  such  results,  further, 
as  might  serve  to  test  the  faith  which  a 
man  thinks  he  possesses. 

First  of  all,  a  man  expecting  an  in- 
definite length  of  life  beyond  death 
takes  himself  in  hand  to  conquer  the 
temptations  which  beset  him,  to  eradi- 
cate his  faults,  to  cultivate  his  virtues. 
The  one  word  which  best  describes 
this  attitude  towards  life  is  self-control. 

If  a  man  is  tolerably  sure  in  his  own 
mind  that  death  ends  all,  he  is  apt  to 
let  certain  parts  of  his  life  slip  away 
from  his  spiritual  grasp.  He  may  out- 
wardly submit  to  all  the  conventions  of 
decency,  because  such  submission  is 
the  easiest  and  most  comfortable  means 
of  meeting  the  days  as  they  pass.  In- 
wardly, however,  he  is  prone  to  say  to 
himself  that,  since  this  life  is  all,  he 

H 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  INDIVIDUAL 

would  wisely  get  out  of  it  anything 
which  ministers  to  his  immediate  pleas- 
ure. Such  a  man  may  appear  to  be  a 
good  citizen,  but  he  is  not  a  man  with 
a  keen  moral  sense,  and  he  has  inher- 
ently no  ideals. 

I  am  fully  aware  that  there  are  ex- 
ceptions to  this  rule.  A  man  like 
Henry  Sidgwick  can  announce  that  he 
has  no  thought  whatever  of  living  be- 
yond the  grave  and  yet  maintain  the 
most  rigid  control  of  all  his  higher  in- 
stincts. This  is  partly  because  of  intel- 
lectual training,  partly  because  Sidg- 
wick was  a  guide  of  youth  to  whom 
he  felt  deep  responsibility.  Able  as  he 
himself  felt  to  stand  up  against  the  nar- 
rowness of  his  hope,  he  dreaded  for 
humanity  any  collapse  of  a  belief  in 
immortality.    He  did  not  believe  the 

IS 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

world  could  hold  together  without  a 
conviction  of  continuing  life.  This  he- 
roic mastery,  without  hope,  may  also 
be  achieved  by  a  form  of  Stoicism,  which 
will  probably  never  fail  strong  but  nega- 
tive personalities.  William  Ernest  Hen- 
ley could  sing,  not  cheerfully  but  cour- 
ageously:— 

Beyond  this  place  of  wrath  and  tears 
Looms  but  the  Horror  of  the  Shade, 

And  yet  the  menace  of  the  years 
Finds,  and  shall  find,  me  unafraid. 

It  matters  not  how  strait  the  gate 

How  charged  with  punishments  the  scroll, 

I  am  the  master  of  my  fate  : 
I  am  the  captain  of  my  soul. 

There  are  others  who,  through  simi- 
lar Stoicism,  have  been  able  to  keep 
themselves  in  order  without  the  great 
vision  of  the  future,  but  they  are  rare 

i6 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  INDIVIDUAL 

spirits,  and,  as  these  verses  show,  they 
do  not  find  their  task  exhilarating. 

One  can  but  depend  on  one's  own 
observation  for  drawing  general  conclu- 
sions, and  I  am  obliged  to  say  that  from 
such  study  as  I  have  been  able  to  give 
to  humanity,  face  to  face,  I  am  quite 
certain  that  a  man  who  has  no  depend- 
ence on  the  future  life,  either  consciously 
or  subconsciously,  is  not  likely  to  cul- 
tivate his  own  self-mastery.  He  drifts; 
he  minimizes  consequences  because  all 
consequences  are  soon  over;  he  feels 
no  eternal  principles.  There  are  excep- 
tions. But  the  exceptions  only  serve  to 
prove  the  rule. 

Now,  what  difference  does  it  make 
when  a  man  becomes  thoroughly  aware 
that  the  barrier  called  death  is  not  a  wall 
but  a  door  ?  He  may  still  lose  command 

17 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

of  himself,  he  may  still  let  his  charac- 
ter drift  to  the  tangled  undergrowth  by 
the  side  of  the  stream;  but  he  cannot  do 
so  complacently.  A  man  who  could  en- 
dure the  thought  of  making  a  mess  of 
threescore  and  ten  years  would  be 
aghast  at  the  thought  of  having  his  life 
confusion  for  eternity.  A  man  awake  to 
the  permanence  of  character  knows  that 
sooner  or  later  he  must  catch  up  the 
threads  that  have  been  allowed  to  un- 
wind. William  James  has  taught  us,  in 
his  vivid  way,  that  just  as  it  is  harder  to 
wind  a  ball  of  string  than  to  let  it  un- 
wind, so  it  is  harder  to  get  control  of 
one's  self  than  to  let  one's  self  go  to  the 
winds.  The  unwinding  of  a  week  may 
take  years  to  wind  again.  William  James 
has  also  taught  us  that  the  body  does  not 
forget.    Everything  we   do    leaves  its 

i8 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  INDIVIDUAL 

traces.  He  speaks  of  a  stream  starting 
its  course  on  the  side  of  a  mountain. 
After  a  rain  the  water  flows  down  along 
the  course  of  least  resistance,  and  digs 
for  itself  a  tiny  channel.  At  the  next  rain, 
when  the  waters  flow,  they  follow  this 
little  track,  only  digging  it  deeper;  and 
so,  month  by  month,  the  stream  is  bound 
to  go  in  the  path  habit  has  made  for  it, 
and  only  the  most  serious  eflfort  of  man 
can  divert  it  from  this  course.  So  our 
insignificant  impulses  start  their  way 
through  our  bodies,  and  wear  first  a 
faint  path,  and  then,  little  by  little,  form 
a  deep  bed  through  which  all  subse- 
quent impulses  must,  but  for  almost 
superhuman  effort,  find  their  way.  If 
the  right  course  is  taken,  fine  habits  are 
formed,  and  all  is  well;  if  the  wrong 
course,  evil  habits  gain  control,  and  all 

19 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

is  failure.  If  death  ends  all,  the  poor 
victim  can  bear  the  prospect;  but  if 
death  does  not  end  all,  he  is  over- 
whelmed with  the  effort  which  he  sees 
that  some  time  he  must  exert.  Whatever 
he  may  imagine  the  medium  .through 
which  life  is  to  be  continued,  whether 
a  body  similar  to  our  material  body,  or 
a  body  so  far  spiritualized  that  it  may 
scarcely  be  called  a  body,  he  is  con- 
vinced that  the  law  which  the  psy- 
chologist clearly  defines  for  this  life 
must,  if  there  is  a  life  beyond  this,  be 
true  also  for  that  life. 

Essentially  all  convictions  about  the 
future  life  agree  in  the  belief  that  charac- 
ter is  the  same  five  minutes  after  death 
that  it  was  five  minutes  before  death.  We 
reach  the  next  stage  of  life  exactly  where 
we  left  it  here.  Death  does  not  mean 

20 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  INDIVIDUAL 

a  huge  leap,  up  or  down.  The  happy 
blessing  is  that  a  man  is  as  good  as  he 
is;  the  dismaying  curse  is  that  he  is  as 
bad  as  he  is.  There  may  be  surprises 
for  the  self-forgetful  and  the  meek,  and 
also  for  the  self-satisfied  and  the  proud ; 
but  facts  and  attainments  are  not  spir- 
ited away  or  metamorphosed  by  any 
heavenly  alchemy.  "Inasmuch  as  ye 
did  it,"  is  the  judgment  of  the  Perfect 
One:  He  expects  men  to  be  what  they 
are.  Just  there  is  their  glory  or  their 
shame.  The  progress  seems  infinite  in 
possibility,  but  life  so  far  as  we  know  it 
does  not  lead  us  to  think  that  we  may 
leap  across  any  wide  gulfs.  Hence,  if 
we  look  forward  to  the  life  beyond  this, 
we  cannot  be  indifferent  to  the  contri- 
bution which  our  life  here  will  surely 
make  to  the  life  there.  If  we  die  with 

21 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

a  bad  temper  unconquered,  we  shall 
have  to  possess  the  ugly  thing  there ;  or 
else  begin  by  the  same  painful  disci- 
pline as  is  required  here  to  rid  ourselves 
of  it  there.  If  we  die  with  sour  envy 
embedded  in  our  character,  with  indi- 
rectness or  cheating,  there  will  they  all 
be  glaring  at  us  to  be  endured  or  to  be 
fought.  It  is  this  solemn  assurance  that 
everything  here  counts  for  a  very  long 
time,  far  beyond  the  span  of  an  earthly 
career,  which  makes  immortality,  once 
believed  in,  enormously  compelling.  A 
man  in  his  senses  cannot  be  convinced 
of  immortality  without  instantly  deter- 
mining to  stiffen  his  course,  to  check 
the  bad,  to  cherish  the  good,  to  be  his 
best.  He  may  stumble  and  fall,  again 
and  again,  but  he  must  grow  towards 
the  destiny  which  awaits  him. 

22 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  INDIVIDUAL 

Among  the  incentives  which  impel 
us  to  take  immortality  seriously  into  our 
everyday  life  is  the  discovery  that  the 
so-called  moral  law  is  not  an  arbitrary 
device  imposed  upon  us  from  a  remote 
and  unsympathetic  government,  but  is 
the  result  of  human  experience  inter- 
preted by  a  divine  clearness.  The  laws 
of  God  are  often  difficult,  but  they  are 
for  human  happiness  in  its  ultimate 
reaches.  We  discover  that  the  prodigal 
sons,  bewitched  with  the  attractions  of 
certain  far  countries,  always  long,  when 
they  come  to  themselves,  to  return 
home.  Righteousness  is  in  some  way 
indissolubly  connected  with  the  satis- 
fying element  in  life.  Our  habits  can- 
not run  riot,  and  make  maturity  or  old 
age  anything  but  a  hideous  nightmare. 
We  sometimes   hear   people   say  that 

23 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

they  think  immortality  undesirable:  so 
far  from  believing  in  it,  they  would  not 
for  the  world  believe  in  it  if  they  could. 
Back  of  this  cynical  scorn  lies  an  in- 
sight into  the  eternal  values.  To  make 
anything  of  even  this  life,  we  must  toil 
like  galley-slaves.  The  effort  to  eradi- 
cate our  meanness  and  our  baseness  is 
almost  impossible;  the  permanent  de- 
sire to  do  exactly  the  right  and  the  true 
is  still  far  off  among  the  shadows.  If 
death  were  all,  we  could  be  content  to 
fail.  But  to  think  of  a  future  prolonged 
in  failure  is  unbearable.  We  must  in 
some  age,  near  or  remote,  begin  to  get 
on  the  right  track.  There  is  little  reason 
to  suppose,  from  what  we  already  have 
learned  of  life,  that  a  postponed  begin- 
ning is  ever  easier  because  it  is  post- 
poned. With  the  spaces  shining  before 

24 


^RESPONSIBILITY  OF  INDIVIDUAL 

us,  we  know  that  we  are  discreet  if  we 
put  off  the  effort  not  a  single  day.  If  we 
win  any  battle  here,  that  battle  is  won 
for  ever;  and  we  are  ready  for  new  vic- 
tories. Other  battles  will  seem  similar, 
but  they  are  never  the  same.  If  we  do 
well  in  any  stage  of  life,  whether  that 
stage  be  a  year  or  the  whole  of  this 
earthly  existence,  the  next  stage  is  in- 
evitably easier.  We  cannot  contemplate 
immortality  without  at  least  a  vigorous 
impulse  towards  self-control. 

Another  incentive  to  take  immortal- 
ity seriously  is  associated  with  what  we 
are  accustomed  to  speak  of  as  the  larger 
hope.  I  shall  have  occasion  to  refer  to 
this  hope  again:  here  I  wish  to  apply 
it  to  our  individual  behaviour.  By  the 
larger  hope  we  mean  the  confidence 
which  many  people  have  that  at  length, 

25 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

whether  in  time  or  in  eternity,  every 
man  shall  be  saved  to  the  beauty  and 
goodness  of  life.  We  are  inclined  to 
state  the  hope  with  a  logical  intimation: 
if,  we  say,  God  has  made  us  and  has  put 
us  in  a  world  which  is  often  sorrowful 
and  dangerous,  He  will  feel  responsible 
for  our  mishaps  and  sins,  and  will  so 
contrive  the  future  that  we  shall  all 
come  out  into  his  marvellous  light.  I  am 
not  now  discussing  whether  there  is  any 
foundation  for  such  a  hope.  The  only 
point  I  wish  to  make  is  that  if  we  accept 
the  larger  hope  it  brings  responsibility 
down  upon  us  individually.  We  cannot 
speak  of  God's  responsibility  for  the  souls 
which  He  has  made  until  we  try  to  im- 
agine how  it  will  be  possible  for  any 
personality  which  has  failed  here  to  be- 
gin to  start  right  in  some  future  age.  As 

26 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  INDIVIDUAL 

a  filthy  vagabond  cannot  be  made  happy 
by  being  thrust  into  a  metropolitan  art- 
gallery  which  delights  the  lover  of  pic- 
tures, or  into  a  library  which  delights 
the  scholar,  or  into  a  palace  which 
makes  the  congenial  environment  of  a 
king,  so  neither  can  a  coarse  and  vul- 
gar worldling  be  made  happy  by  throw- 
ing him  into  a  group  of  saints  who  talk 
perpetually  of  worship  and  love  and 
service.  It  is  something  in  the  man  him- 
self which  must  be  changed:  it  is  not  so 
much  the  material  for  happiness  as  the 
capacity  to  enjoy  happiness  which  he 
must  win.  Accordingly,  if  a  miscreant, 
having  come  to  the  end  of  an  ill-spent 
life,  is  defiantly  charging  God  to  remem- 
ber that,  having  created  him.  He  owes 
to  him  as  good  a  future  as  to  the  no- 
blest, God  may  grant  him  his  demand; 

27 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

but  the  first  truth  which  will  be  borne 
in  upon  the  man's  awaking  intelligence 
will  be  that  the  demand  is  not  so  much 
upon  God  as  upon  him.  He  himself 
must  change.  If  he  has  allowed  his 
habits  to  harden  on  the  wrong  side,  he 
must  sooner  or  later  take  up  the  grim 
task  of  changing  those  bad  habits  into 
good  habits.  To  put  off  the  day  of  be- 
ginning to  do  this  is  only  by  so  far  to 
increase  the  difficulty.  To  say  that  God 
must  bring  us  all  out  into  the  heavenly 
places  of  life  is  in  a  measure  to  limit 
our  freedom.  These  people  who  have 
been  defying  law  all  their  lives  will  be 
forced  to  submit  patiently,  as  if  they 
were  children  just  beginning  to  walk, 
to  the  law  of  the  privilege  which  they 
charge  upon  God  as  their  right.  If 
God  grants  it,  they  will  find  the  disci- 

28 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  INDIVIDUAL 

pline  goading  them  on  to  choose  the 
paths  which  hitherto  they  have  de- 
spised. And  when  their  imagination  has 
gone  thus  far,  they  will  cry  out  that, 
since  immortality  of  a  saving  sort  is 
surely  before  them,  they  will  begin  now 
to  make  ready  for  it.  They  may  fail; 
but,  if  they  are  sane,  they  will  try  to 
begin. 

The  first  result  of  a  vital  faith  in  im- 
mortality is  that  the  believer  will,  be- 
cause of  his  belief,  assume  a  tighter 
control  of  his  daily  life.  Seeing  that 
this  earthly  life  is  only  a  fragment  of  a 
very  long  life,  he  will  determine  to  get 
on  as  far  as  may  be  before  this  first 
chapter  closes. 


29 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

IV 

Another  result  of  a  firm  belief  in  im- 
mortality is  courage  to  meet  the  hard 
places  in  life,  because,  in  spite  of  their 
cruel  torture  for  the  time  being,  they  are 
seen  to  have  a  meaning  for  a  life  extended 
beyond  the  life  which  we  now  live.  We 
gain  this  courage  first  from  certain  ex- 
periences within  the  limits  of  this  life. 
For  example,  a  youth  may  pass  through 
a  long  illness  which  brings  him  close 
to  death.  He  may  be  in  pain  for  weeks. 
At  the  time  the  whole  experience  seems 
altogether  grievous;  but  as  the  invalid 
passes  into  the  hope  and  joy  of  conva- 
lescence, he  begins  to  survey  life  as  he 
never  examined  it  before:  he  contem- 
plates  its  dignity  and  its  value.  With 
gratitude  to  the  Giver  of  life  and  health 

30 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  INDIVIDUAL 

he  determines  to  do  something  serious 
and  worthy  with  the  years  before  him; 
and  thus  he  enters  upon  a  career  which 
proves  to  be  full  of  satisfying  ideals  and 
accomplishment.  As  he  thinks  what  he 
might  have  been  had  no  such  tragedy 
fallen  across  his  path,  he  blesses  the 
evil  day  when  he  lay  low  with  a  dread 
sickness.  That  harsh  experience  has 
come  to  mean  something  for  the  glory 
of  life,  a  glory  it  could  not  otherwise 
have  had.  Or,  again,  the  father  of  a 
family  may  find  his  business  crumbling 
about  his  head;  and  in  the  blackness  of 
his  despair  he  goes  home  to  tell  his 
rather  worldly  and  selfish  family  that 
they  will  have  to  give  up  all  the  luxu- 
ries and  conveniences  of  life.  Where- 
upon, instead  of  meeting  reproach,  he 
finds  a  love  and  a  sympathy  which  he 

31 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

never  suspected.  These  pampered  chil- 
dren rise  up  to  help  him  bear  his  bur- 
den. They  all  together  enter  the  valley 
of  poverty;  but  out  of  that  poverty  both 
he  and  his  children  gain  a  happiness 
and  a  worth  which  the  days  of  pros- 
perity never  could  have  given.  For 
months  he  may  curse  the  bitterness  of 
his  fate;  and  only  after  many  readjust- 
ments does  he  awake  as  from  a  dream 
to  appreciate  how  fortunate  he  and  his 
have  been  to  have  had  a  crushing  mis- 
fortune. These  are  types  of  the  experi- 
ences which  can  in  an  earthly  period 
demonstrate  that  at  least  some  of  the 
hard  places  have  a  meaning  beyond 
their  vexing  pain. 

But  there  are  other  experiences  which 
cannot  be  explained  on  earth.  The  little 
child,  endowed  with  what  seems  bud- 

32 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  INDIVIDUAL 

ding  genius  and  a  generous  opportu- 
nity, dies:  his  life  is  snuffed  out  in  an 
evening  twilight,  and  this  world  seems 
to  those  who  knew  and  loved  him  un- 
utterably poor  for  ever.  This  world  can 
give  no  meaning  to  that  experience. 
Again,  of  two  people  bound  together 
by  a  beautiful  love  through  the  years, 
one  passes  through  death  into  the  un- 
seen; and  for  the  survivor  is  a  loneli- 
ness worse  than  death.  This  world  can 
only  say  that  separation  is  inevitable; 
it  has  no  solution  for  the  bleak  fact. 
Once  more,  there  are  invalids  chained 
to  beds  of  pain  with  the  physician's 
verdict  that  they  never  can  be  well. 
They  lack  neither  courage  nor  ambi- 
tion: they  are  able  to  fire  with  purpose 
those  who,  in  their  strength,  stand  near 
them;  but  for  their  own  individual  lives 

33 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

there  is  in  this  world  no  meaning  in 
their  woe:  they  wait  only  for  release 
and  forgetfulness.  Finally,  there  are 
the  miserably  poor,  who  never  have  a 
chance  in  this  world:  among  them  are 
certain  alert  persons  who  rise  out  of 
poverty  to  seize  upon  some  mammoth 
opportunity,  and  through  the  discipline 
which  poverty  has  given  them  they  are 
strong  enough  to  lead  the  world  in  their 
department  of  activity.  But  these  con- 
spicuous fruits  of  poverty  are  excep- 
tions. What  are  we  to  say  of  the  poor 
who  remain  poor,  whose  grinding  strug- 
gle leaves  them  lustreless  and  heavy, 
incapable  of  any  but  the  gross  enjoy- 
ments of  life  ?  They  die,  and  those  who 
behold,  and  who  know,  can  only  say 
frankly  that  they  are  glad  for  them  that 
they  are  dead.  This  world,  let  us  con- 

34 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  INDIVIDUAL 

fess,  has  no  solution  for  the  mystery  of 
degrading  poverty. 

Now,  how  are  all  such  experiences 
to  be  interpreted  the  moment  we  are 
convinced  that  no  solution  of  anything 
is  to  be  weighed  till  we  have  imagined 
what  is  to  be  the  result  in  a  life  beyond 
death  ?  If  we  find  that  disasters,  tempo- 
rarily disheartening,  can  in  this  life  find 
an  encouraging  meaning,  it  is  legitimate 
to  assume  that  forlorn  conditions,  never 
explained  here,  can  in  the  life  to  come 
receive  a  meaning  which  can  justify 
their  austerity.  We  catch  glimpses  of 
this  outcome  when  we  measure  results 
through  long  ranges  of  history.  When 
America  was  being  colonized,  the  Span- 
iards fixed  upon  the  luxuriant  South, 
and  in  its  ease  and  warmth  their  civ- 
ilization  perished.    The  English   sent 

35 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

colony  after  colony  to  the  swamps  of 
Virginia  and  to  the  rock-bound  coasts 
of  New  England:  hardship  and  death 
dogged  them  at  every  step,  but  out  of 
this  difficulty  arose  the  civilization  of 
the  West.  In  the  seventeenth  century 
the  world  was  not  confident  of  the  re- 
sult of  a  civilization  built  upon  toil  and 
peril;  it  takes  generations  and  centuries 
to  demonstrate  such  a  principle.  Thus, 
going  only  a  little  farther,  we  venture 
to  push  the  principle  out  beyond  the 
bounds  of  time  into  eternity,  assured 
that  it  will  be  found  as  true  there  as  in 
the  individual  life,  and  as  in  the  course 
of  history.  To  be  confident  of  immor- 
tality is  also  to  be  confident  that  every 
hard  place  in  life  means  something,  if 
we  will  bravely  accept  it.  Therefore, 
to  believe  in  immortality  is  to  send^us 

36 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  INDIVIDUAL 

back  to  our  present  experience  with 
courage  for  any  fate.  To  make  this 
clear,  I  intend  to  speculate  upon  the 
meaning  which  may  possibly  be  found 
in  another  life  for  the  four  experiences 
which  I  have  mentioned  as  insoluble 
this  side  the  grave,  —  the  death  of  little 
children,  the  separation  in  death  of  lov- 
ers, life-long  illness,  and  hopeless  pov- 
erty. It  will  be  only  imagination,  but 
the  imagination  will  be  based  upon  ex- 
perience which  has  been  realized. 

What  shall  we  say  of  the  death  of 
little  children?  They  have  missed  the 
sunlight  and  the  laughter  of  earth.  How 
can  those  who  love  them  be  reconciled 
to  their  passing?  We  cannot  tell,  but 
it  is  possible  that,  entering  the  new  life 
as  children,  they  shall  remain  the  gay 
and  innocent  children  of  eternity.  Apart 

37 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

from  the  spirited  variety  which  they 
must  contribute  to  the  on-going  life, 
there  is  the  possible  great  reward  for 
them  individually  that  they  may  con- 
tinue to  be  the  care-free,  blithe  beings 
whom  we  knew  here,  only  developed 
and  perfected  into  the  heavenly  child- 
hood. We  may  think  of  their  loss  here 

—  for  they  have  missed  the  joys  of 
earth  as  well  as  its  sorrows  and  pitfalls 

—  as  made  up  to  them  by  a  peculiar 
privilege  not  granted  to  maturity,  and 
for  ever  preserved. 

Then  there  is  the  separation  by  death 
of  those  whose  lives  have  been  bound 
together  in  the  holy  and  intimate  ties 
of  love.  What  possible  interpretation 
can  immortality  give  to  such  desola- 
tion, and  how  can  it  cry  out  to  the 
bereaved    soul.  Courage!     Again   we 

38 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  INDIVIDUAL 

have  only  imagination  to  guide  us ;  but 
earthly  conditions  give  us  a  valid  sug- 
gestion. When  a  boy  is  sent  to  school, 
both  he  and  his  parents  are  overwhelmed 
with  that  most  poignant  suffering  of 
separation,  known  as  homesickness: 
there  is  no  pain  quite  like  it.  Yet  love 
dares  to  maintain  the  degree  of  separa- 
tion which  the  boy's  going  away  to 
school  involves.  The  event  proves  that 
love  was  wise  in  its  Spartan  discipline; 
for  the  separation  teaches  the  boy,  as 
he  could  not  otherwise  learn,  what  his 
home  and  his  parents  are.  Viewing 
them  from  a  distance  he  seems  first  to 
know  them.  He  comes  back  upon  his 
holiday,  if  he  is  a  right-minded  boy, 
with  a  new  appreciation  and  reverence 
of  his  father  and  his  mother.  He  has  a 
knowledge  of  them  which  uninterrupted 

39 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

fellowship  could  not  have  given  him. 
There  we  have  the  suggestion  of  the 
meaning  of  the  separation  of  death  for 
those  who  love  one  another.  If  death 
is  the  end,  the  best  one  can  achieve  is 
stoical  resignation.  If  death  is  not  all, 
and  immortality  is  in  store,  then  the 
Comforter  of  humanity  may  and  does 
inspire  with  courage  the  baffled  and 
desolate  survivor,  —  somewhat  as  the 
loving  father  gives  consoling  strength 
to  his  homesick  boy  who  writes  his 
woe  from  the  far-away  school.  We  be- 
gin, when  convinced  of  immortality,  to 
believe  that  separation  must  mean  some- 
thing. It  is  not  a  mere  physical  neces- 
sity, but  a  spiritual  benefit.  May  it  be, 
we  ask,  that  if  we  were  not  separated 
for  a  time  from  those  we  love,  we 
should  lose  something  of  our  full  ap- 

40 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  INDIVIDUAL 

preciation  of  them?  Would  the  future 
life  be  less  complete  because  we  had 
not  known  them  as  the  boy  at  school 
learns,  with  an  intenser  knowledge,  to 
love  his  father  and  his  mother?  There 
is  such  a  defect  as  taking  friendship 
and  love  too  much  for  granted.  It  is 
good  to  lose  it  for  a  season  that  we 
may  learn  it  to  be  the  supreme  miracle 
that  it  is.  The  separation  of  death  may, 
one  thinks,  do  this  very  thing:  it  may 
enhance  the  joy  of  mutual  love  when 
the  day  of  re-possession  comes.  There 
is  sound  reason  why  a  man  who  be- 
lieves in  immortality  should  have  high 
courage  in  the  presence  even  of  blind- 
ing bereavement.  "Now  I  recognize,'' 
writes  just  such  a  brave  sufferer,  "that 
the  spirit  cannot  be  crushed  by  circum- 
stances.  A  flood  of  joyous  and  deep 

41 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

realizations  have  come  to  me  lately.  It 
seems  almost  quite  worth  while  to  have 
lived  through  such  agonies  to  under- 
stand human  life  and  suffering  as  I  can, 
and  to  have  the  power  to  help  at  times 
the  people  who  turn  to  me.  There  is  a 
kind  of  fulness  of  life  in  me  now  which 
is  overwhelming:  it  is  not  exaltation, 
but  a  sort  of  clarity  of  vision  and  in- 
tensity of  love  which  heightens  life's 
beauty  and  meaningi"  Such  moods 
cannot  be  more  than  intermittent  in 
this  life.  They  are  the  intimations  of 
immortality.  "  Now  we  see  through  a 
glass,  darkly;  but  then  face  to  face." 

We  come,  next,  to  the  contemplation 
of  a  life  crippled  by  painful  illness  and 
so  debarred  from  any  active  service  in 
the  world.  How  shall  we  persuade  the 
hopeless  invalid  to  hope  against  hope? 

42 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  INDIVIDUAL 

I  am  not  now  thinking  of  partial  in- 
valids, like  Robert  Louis  Stevenson, 
who,  in  spite  of  weak  bodies,  succeed 
in  accomplishing  the  tasks  of  giants.  I 
am  thinking  of  the  unknown  people 
who  are  quite  beyond  work  of  any  sort, 
the  people  whose  only  service  can  be 
to  endure  without  groans  and  lamen- 
tations. A  Christian  minister  sees  in 
the  course  of  twenty  years  an  appalling 
amount  of  physical  suffering.  Day  after 
day  he  sees  people  whom  death  only 
can  release  from  racking  and  inces- 
sant pain :  they  are  wholly  incapaci- 
tated. As  he  sees  the  faces  of  such  peo- 
ple, ordinarily  not  hard  but  tender  and 
patient,  he  knows  by  his  Christian  be- 
lief in  immortality  what  a  vast  strength 
of  inner  character  is  being  stored  up 
against  that  day  of  release.    It  is  no 

43 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

perfunctory  word  of  cheer  which  he 
speaks.  He  is  looking  at  such  heroism 
as  any  soldier  might  be  proud  to  equal 
on  the  battlefield.  He  knows  beyond 
peradventure  that  such  gallant  bearing 
means  a  victory  which  is  to  become  a 
permanent  possession.  Without  immor- 
tality, such  courage  as  this  is  mockery; 
with  immortality,  it  is  sublime:  there 
is  the  most  ardent  reason  for  it.  Not  an 
atom  of  it  is  lost. 

And  there  is  the  oppression  of  pov- 
erty. How  shall  one  be  courageous 
under  its  strain  ?  Poverty  is  quite  likely 
so  far  to  subdue  a  man's  spirit  that  he 
believes  himself  a  failure.  Everything 
to  which  he  has  turned  his  hand  has 
failed  to  give  him  what,  by  any  ordi- 
nary estimate,  would  be  called  a  living. 
He  has  scarcely  been  able  to  keep  soul 

44 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  INDIVIDUAL 

and  body  together.  But  there  are  men 
who  are  poor  in  just  this  way  who  have 
not  lost  their  interest  in  life.  How  can 
they  avoid  scoffing  and  murmuring  ex- 
cept by  seeing  another  world  before 
them!  They  know  that  their  courage 
is  not  lost.  If  death  were  the  end,  it 
would  be  lost;  but  since  they  are  con- 
vinced that  death  is  not  the  end,  they 
are  sure  that  their  brave  conquest  of 
untoward  circumstances  will  count. 
Lazarus  shall  yet  be  in  Abraham's 
bosom,  not  by  a  mere  turning  of  the 
tables,  but  by  the  inherent  right  of  a 
hard  lot  courageously  endured.  In  this 
life  the  son  of  a  manufacturer  is  often 
trained  to  succeed  his  father  in  leader- 
ship by  being  sent  to  work  in  the  lowest 
and  most  disagreeable  departments  of 
the  mill,  there   to  learn  the  business 

45 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

from  the  beginning.  It  may  be  that  in 
the  new  life,  having  begun  at  the  bot- 
tom in  this,  and  not  having  shirked,  the 
brave  poor  man  will  be  fitted  to  go  for- 
ward to  successes,  which  the  man,  suc- 
cessful here,  will  never  attain.  Once 
more  immortality  permits  us  to  believe 
that  every  experience  has  its  possible 
meaning  and  can  be  made  to  count  to- 
wards the  future. 

It  must  be  granted  that  all  these  rea- 
sons for  courage  in  the  hard  places  of 
life  must  be  expressed  through  imagi- 
nary outcomes.  But  immortality  can  so 
far  inspire  a  rational  hope  that  it  be- 
lieves these  imaginary  outcomes  insuf- 
ficiently described.  When  we  are  sure 
of  immortality  we  are  not  afraid  of  any 
condition :  we  know  that  no  sign  of 
courage,  active  or  passive,  will  fail  of 

46 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  INDIVIDUAL 

its  exact  reward.  Everything  that  hap- 
pens to  us,  to  the  very  gate  of  death, 
can  by  a  brave  man  be  turned  to  ac- 
count for  the  glorious  future  which 
awaits  his  coming.  Our  best  imagin- 
ings fall  short.  We  may  dream,  so  fire 
our  courage,  and  then  expect  something 
better  than  our  wildest  dreams.  This  is 
not  superficial  optimism  made  in  soft 
and  luxurious  homes;  it  is  the  fierce 
confidence  bred  in  places  where  one 
would  expect  to  find  only  weeping  and 
groaning  and  cursing.  It  is  not  joy  ex- 
actly, but  it  is  akin  to  joy.  It  is  the 
dauntlessness  of  Job,  when  he  said, 
"  Though  he  slay  me,  yet  will  I  trust  in 
Him."  It  is  the  conviction  that  the  fu- 
ture is  so  sure  that  no  struggle  against 
a  present  ill  can  be  in  vain. 


47 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

V 

A  third  result  of  a  belief  in  immortal- 
ity is  detachment  from  the  mere  things 
of  life.  This  detachment  is  not  a  for- 
lorn asceticism,  dwelling  upon  its  self- 
denial,  but  is  the  happy  ascent  to  a 
new  sense  of  freedom.  Certain  qualities 
within  man  are  conceived  as  permanent, 
—  love  and  honour  and  sacrifice  and 
righteousness,  —  but  the  houses  and 
lands  are  remembered  to  be  temporary. 
And  yet  many  excellent  people  grow 
haggard  with  worry  about  the  outward 
and  the  passing.  They  fret  because  their 
income  is  affected  by  a  change  in  the 
market;  they  cannot  smile  because  a 
certain  building  which  they  owned  has 
been  burned;  they  are  in  despair  be- 
cause a  thief  in  the  night  has  carried  off 

48 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  INDIVIDUAL 

much  of  their  family  silver.  All  these 
outer  circumstances  seem  to  vex  them 
vastly  more  than  the  impression  that  a 
son  at  college  is  wasting  his  time,  that 
a  daughter  is  vulgar  in  her  conversation, 
that  they  themselves  are  growing  hard. 
In  his  better  moments  a  man  may  envy 
his  coachman  the  radiant  look  in  his 
eye;  he  may  sigh  and  wish  himself  as 
free  as  this  underling. 

It  is  important  to  notice  that  it  is  the 
poor  man  quite  as  much  as  the  rich  man 
who  may  be  in  bondage  to  things.  I  re- 
member years  ago  coming  upon  the 
smouldering  ruins  of  an  isolated  cottage 
by  the  roadside.  Over  these  ashes  a 
woman  was  weeping  and  wringing  her 
hands.  She  was  obliged  to  work  all  day, 
and  had  left  her  tiny  house  that  morn- 
ing believing  it  safe.  She  now  returned 

49 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

to  find  everything  that  she  possessed 
gone:  not  one  thing  had  been  saved. 
She  told  of  the  chair  in  which  she  had 
sat;  of  the  old  bits  of  cloth  which  had 
belonged  to  her  mother;  of  the  photo- 
graphs. .  .  .  Her  family  were  all  dead; 
she  had  made  no  friends;  she  had  no 
interests  beyond  these  few  treasures, 
which  each  night  she  had  been  wont  to 
fondle  as  if  they  had  been  children. 
The  whole  scene  was  heart-breaking. 
It  was  the  story  of  Job  in  a  modern 
form.  But  when  one  thought  it  over,  it 
ought  not  to  have  been  a  tragedy.  Sym- 
bolical as  these  possessions  were,  they 
were  but  symbols,  things.  The  reali- 
ties for  which  they  stood  still  lay  be- 
hind and  above  them,  indestructible. 
The  love,  the  loyalty,  the  comfort,  once 
enshrined  in  them   had   not    perished 

SO 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  INDIVIDUAL 

with  them.  Only  the  woman  did  not 
know.  Things  were  all  in  all  to  her.  In 
exactly  the  same  way  the  monk  who 
has  devoted  his  life  to  poverty  may  be 
dreaming  of  the  possessions  he  might 
have  had,  and  may  be  congratulating 
himself  because  he  has  been  amazingly 
good  to  give  them  up.  From  time  to  time 
he  longs  for  them.  So,  too,  the  poor  la- 
bouring man,  living  in  two  rooms,  may 
have  for  his  ideal  the  possession  of  a 
palace  on  some  avenue  with  all  the 
trappings  which  belong  to  it.  In  con- 
trast with  all  this,  we  may  think  of  cer- 
tain  rich  men  who  have  been  sur- 
rounded all  their  lives  with  abundance 
of  possessions,  and  who  are  so  far  in- 
different to  them  that  if  their  posses- 
sions were  all  to  vanish  in  one  night, 
their  owners  could  on  the  next  daybe- 

51 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

gin  again  with  entire  courage  to  earn  a 
living.  I  have  known  such  people.  The 
only  explanation  of  their  attitude  is  that, 
for  one  reason  or  another,  they  have  be- 
come detached  from  things.  A  sense  of 
immortality  has  been  borne  in  upon 
them.  They  are  able  to  distinguish  be- 
tween things  and  realities.  Perhaps 
many  of  those  dearest  to  them  have 
gone  beyond  the  range  of  death.  Per- 
haps they  are  absorbed  in  some  control- 
ling enthusiasm.  Perhaps  they  have  be- 
come sated  with  things  and  are  weary 
of  them.  Whatever  the  reason,  there  are 
men,  rich  and  poor,  who  are  honestly 
indifferent  to  things.  They  use  them 
when  they  are  theirs.  But  they  do  not 
magnify  them.  To  have  them  or  to  lose 
them  is  not  of  much  consequence.  They 
have  laid  up  for  themselves  treasure  in 

52 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  INDIVIDUAL 

life  where  moth  and  rust  do  not  cor- 
rupt, and  where  thieves  do  not  break 
through  nor  steal.  Where  their  treasure 
is,  there  are  their  hearts  also. 

It  is  a  conviction  of  immortality,  held 
either  consciously  or  subconsciously, 
which  alone  can  really  give  detachment 
from  things.  If  one  lives  on  a  mighty 
thoroughfare,  where  thousands  of  all 
sorts  of  human  beings  pass  each  day, 
one  ma}^  easily  have  the  maudlin  senti- 
mentality of  Xerxes  on  the  Hellespont, 
watching  his  million  soldiers  march  by, 
and  weeping  because  in  a  brief  time 
all  this  host  must  be  dead.  As  one  goes 
out  into  the  throngs  and  watches  the 
faces,  reading  there  the  infinite  ranges 
of  fear  and  hope,  of  joy  and  sorrow,  of 
failure  and  achievement,  one  is  swept 
upon  the  shores  of  eternity.  It  is  not 

S3 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

the  passing  of  earthly  bodies  which  con- 
cerns one,  but  the  permanent  forces  in 
life.  Then  in  the  surging  stream  of  life, 
lost  in  its  onward  rush,  one  looks  up  at 
the  tall  buildings  and  sees  them  as  in  a 
dream.  They  are  not  real.  It  is  the  life 
which  devises  them,  which  passes  in 
and  out,  which  sees  them  crumble  and 
fall  to  dust, —  it  is  human  life  which  is 
real,  —  the  life  which  is  unseen,  spirit- 
ual, albeit  enshrined  for  a  few  years  in 
bodies  which  we  see.  After  such  an  ex- 
perience as  this  one  returns  to  one's  fa- 
miliar possessions  with  a  feeling  almost 
of  resentment  that  they  are  there  to 
clog  one's  journey.  Life  is  so  much 
more  than  things,  it  stretches  out  so 
wide  and  far,  that  one  is  able  quite  to 
forget  things.  The  sense  of  immortality 
blots  them  out  of  thought  and  interest. 

54 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  INDIVIDUAL 

They  are  to  be  used  as  the  earth  is  used 
under  the  marching  of  soldiers  going 
into  battle.  The  earth  is  there,  it  helps; 
but  the  inspiration  for  the  battle  is  the 
imperishable  cause  for  which  men  are 
content  to  die.  So  men,  because  aglow 
with  immortality,  win  their  detachment 
from  things. 

VI 

A  youth  of  intelligence  cannot  reach 
the  consciousness  of  awaking  powers 
within  him  without  simultaneously  be- 
coming aware  that  if  he  is  to  fulfil  his 
destiny  he  must  use  those  powers  for 
some  honest  and  hard  work.  If,  through 
the  years,  you  watch  such  a  person,  you 
can  at  least  surmise  — perhaps  you  can 
know  —  whether  or  not  he  is  depend- 
ing in  any  sense  upon  an  expectation 

55 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

of  immortality.  If  the  work  appears 
to  be  such  as  could  reasonably  be 
rounded  and  completed  within  an  ordi- 
nary earthly  life,  you  must  think  that, 
neither  consciously  nor  subconsciously, 
does  he  rely  upon  any  hope  of  having 
more  than  one  lifetime  for  his  task.  If, 
however,  you  see  that  his  chosen  work 
is  too  ambitious  to  be  closed  in  even  a 
hundred  years,  if,  further,  as  you  look 
into  his  clear  eyes  you  know  that  he  is 
neither  self-deceived  nor  mad,  you  then 
know  that,  however  silently  and  mod- 
estly, he  is  expecting  ample  time  to 
work  out  his  dreams, — a  time  so  am- 
ple, indeed,  that  he  intends  to  go  on 
working  after  the  latch  of  death  has 
snapped  the  door  of  this  life  behind 
him.  He  shows  by  the  greatness  of  his 
task  his  belief   in  immortality.    "For 

56 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  INDIVIDUAL 

half  a  century,"  wrote  Victor  Hugo, 
"  I  have  been  writing  my  thoughts  in 
prose  and  in  verse ;  history,  philosophy, 
drama,  romance,  tradition,  satire,  ode, 
and  song;  I  have  tried  all.  But  I  feel 
that  I  have  not  said  the  thousandth  part 
of  what  is  in  me.  When  I  go  down  to 
the  grave  I  can  say,  like  many  others, 
^  I  have  finished  my  day's  work.'  But  I 
cannot  say,  '  I  have  finished  my  life.'  " 
And  so  it  is  for  every  man.  If  any 
person  is  thoroughly  aroused  by  a  con- 
viction of  immortality,  the  work  he  sets 
himself  to  do  will  show  it.  It  has  often 
been  said  that  the  world  is  done  with 
the  man  whose  work  is  done.  On  the 
other  hand,  if  we  see  a  man  whose  work 
will  take  eternity  to  finish,  we  ask  trem- 
blingly whether  eternity  may  not  be 
given  him.  For  that  man  there  is  rea- 

57 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

son,  at  any  rate,  why  there  should  be 
eternity.  He  is  justifying  his  beHef  in  it. 
There  are  a  good  many  young  peo- 
ple with  a  touch  of  genius  who  are  so 
delicate  in  health  that  it  is  exceedingly 
problematical  whether  they  can  live 
more  than  a  few  years.  Again  and  again 
you  find  these  brilliant  people  facing 
death  as  a  probability  and  yet  going  on 
gallantly  with  a  vigorous  preparation 
for  a  significant  life-work.  It  is  folly  to 
think  that  they  can  do  anything  ade- 
quate with  such  a  long  preparation  unless 
they  are  to  have  twenty  or  thirty  years 
in  which  to  build  upon  their  foundation, 
—  and  then  they  can  but  make  a  begin- 
ning. You  may  say  that  these  young 
persons  are  gambling  with  fate:  they 
are  getting  ready  to  live  this  life  only 
in  case  they  are  allowed  to  live^  while 

S8 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  INDIVIDUAL 

there  is  life  there  is  hope,  and  youth  is 
divinely  hopeful.  The  physical  weak- 
ness may  pass:  they  may  after  all  live 
long  on  the  earth.  Perhaps  they  may. 
But  one  cannot  help  thinking  that,  with- 
out forgetting  such  a  chance,  they  are 
counting  upon  something  which  is  to 
them  more  certain.  Though  weak  now 
they  are  conscious  that,  whatever  be- 
falls them,  there  is  strength  for  them  in 
the  future.  They  go  about  their  task  of 
laying  solid  foundations,  knowing  by  a 
superb  instinct  that  their  preparation 
shall  count  for  a  great  task  whether 
they  live  or  whether  they  die.  They, 
too,  by  the  greatness  of  the  work  which 
they  have  chosen,  demonstrate  what  it 
is  truly  to  believe  in  immortality. 

Another  phase  of  the  same  truth  ap- 
pears in  a  worker  who  persists  in  cling- 

59 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

ing  to  an  ideal,  the  practical  fruits  of 
which  the  present  world  treats  with 
disregard  or  contempt.  An  artist,  for 
example,  may  continue  to  paint  pictures 
in  such  a  style  that  no  one  will  buy 
them.  This  artist  may  have  unques- 
tioned genius.  He  could  readily  paint 
exactly  the  sort  of  pictures  which  would 
satisfy  the  current  taste,  and  so  instantly 
find  a  market  for  his  work.  But  he  sees 
that  it  is  his  divinely  appointed  task  to 
go  on  developing  his  art  in  the  way  he 
believes  to  be  the  highest  till  he  has 
painted  the  best  picture  of  that  kind 
which  can  be  painted.  Meantime,  will 
the  world  of  his  day  ever  recognize  the 
beauty  and  the  truth  which  he  sees  in 
his  work?  Even  after  his  death,  should 
the  pictures  survive,  would  any  age  give 
its  approval  ?  And  there  is  still  another 

60 


/ 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  INDIVIDUAL 

question:  Is  it  possible  that  through  a 
long  earthly  life  he  might  never  be  able 
to  paint  such  a  picture  as  any  genera- 
tion of  men  ought  to  value  ?  Remember 
the  well-assured  fact  that  he  could  at 
any  moment  drop  his  ideal  and  paint 
the  sort  of  pictures  which  the  rich  of 
to-day  would  rush  forward  to  buy;  and 
then  contemplate  the  conviction  which 
prefers  poverty  and  inattention  rather 
than  to  surrender  a  belief  in  the  signifi- 
cance of  his  work  as  he  is  trying  to  do 
it.  That  persistent  faith  in  the  value  of 
his  work  means  a  sublime  reliance  on 
immortality.  The  flash  of  this  artist's 
eye  proclaims  to  the  observer  that  the 
toiler  cannot  toil  in  vain.  He  sees  the 
ultimate  victory  in  the  clouds  of  heaven. 
He  seems  to  know  immortality. 

Of  modern  biographies  there  is  not  a 

6i 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

more  inspiring  life  than  that  of  Louis 
Pasteur.  His  biographer  says  plainly 
that  Pasteur  was  constantly  mindful  of 
immortality.  "  Absorbed  as  he  was,"  is 
the  record,  "in  his  daily  task,  he  yet 
carried  in  himself  a  constant  aspiration 
towards  the  Ideal,  a  deep  conviction  of 
the  reality  of  the  Infinite  and  a  trustful 
acquiescence  in  the  mystery  of  the  uni- 
verse." Again  the  biographer  writes, 
**  Absolute  faith  in  God  and  in  eternity, 
and  a  conviction  that  the  power  for 
good  given  to  us  in  this  world  will 
be  continued  beyond  it,  were  feelings 
which  pervaded  his  whole  life."  And  at 
the  end  the  biographer  relates  that  it 
seemed  as  if  "  Pasteur  already  saw  those 
dead  ones  who,  like  him,  had  preserved 
absolute  faith  in  the  Future  Life." 
But  we   need  no  assurances  either 

62 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  INDIVIDUAL 

from  the  biographer  or  from  Pasteur's 
own  letters  to  tell  us  that  Pasteur  be- 
lieved eagerly  in  immortality.  The 
reader  is  convinced  by  the  method  in 
which  Pasteur  chose  and  performed  his 
work.  Having  discovered  his  transcen- 
dent gift  of  saving  life  through  science, 
he  gave  himself  up  to  his  vision  with 
utter  recklessness.  When  he  was  trying 
to  arrest  cholera  in  Paris  in  1865,  risk- 
ing his  life  in  his  experiments,  Henri 
Deville  said  to  him  one  day,  "  Studies 
of  that  sort  require  much  courage"; 
whereupon  Pasteur  answered  simply, 
"  What  about  duty  ?  "  When  he  was 
treating  poor  little  Joseph  Meister,  ap- 
parently dying  of  hydrophobia,  he  lost 
sight  of  the  accumulation  of  experiments 
on  animals  which  guaranteed  his  suc- 
cess, and  spent  the  last  terrible  night 

63 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

before  the  cure  was  certain  in  sleepless- 
ness, being  haunted  through  the  slow 
dark  hours  by  distorted  visions  of  a  dy- 
ing child.  His  first  discoveries  were  of 
enormous  commercial  value,  and  he 
could  easily  have  been  diverted  from 
his  desire  to  relieve  human  suffering 
by  confining  himself  to  studies  of  fer- 
mentation, silk-worms,  and  the  like,  in 
order  to  become  immensely  rich;  but 
he  was  sure  that  "a  man  of  pure  sci- 
ence would  complicate  his  life,  the  or- 
der of  his  thoughts,  and  risk  paralyz- 
ing his  inventive  faculties,  if  he  were 
to  make  money  by  his  discoveries." 
In  mid-life  he  did  have  a  break-down 
which  seemed  to  indicate  that  his  career 
was  to  be  cut  short.  But  he  worked  on 
steadily,  without  excitement,  as  if  death, 
if  it  came,  could  not  interrupt  him.  And 

64 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  INDIVIDUAL 

at  the  end  of  his  full  career,  when,  after 
crowding  honours  from  a  grateful  world, 
he  knew  that  he  must  pass  from  this 
life,  he  did  not  fold  his  hands  and  ask 
for  peace,  but  each  day  asked  to  be 
pushed  in  his  wheel-chair  into  the  gar- 
den of  his  Institut  that  he  might  share, 
with  his  last  intelligence  and  his  last 
strength,  in  its  work.  As  one  lays  down 
the  book  one  is  forced  to  say  that  the 
life  of  Pasteur  was  not  finished  in  his 
seventy-three  years  of  earth.  It  is,  one 
says  to  one's  self,  that  man's  vocation  to 
work  at  his  great  task  for  ever;  conse- 
quently one  thinks,  "  Life  for  evermore 
is  his."  He  not  only  believed  in  im- 
mortality: he  lived  it. 

It  is  inevitable  that  to  many  a  mod- 
est man  or  woman  this  assumption  of  a 
great  task,  to  prove  one's  faith  in  im- 

65 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

mortalityj  should  seem  beyond  the  most 
earnest  grasp.  The  duties  of  the  com- 
mon day  seem  to  absorb  every  second 
of  time;  and  to  go  wildly  in  search  of 
some  ambitious  scheme  would  mean 
only  to  abandon  the  evident  duty  be- 
neath one's  hand, —  and  that  would  be 
wrong.  The  reply  to  such  a  cavil  as  this 
is  to  point  out  that  great  tasks  are  not 
necessarily  conspicuous.  The  greatest 
task  is  often  the  insignificant  duty  done 
in  a  great  way,  which  thereby  trans- 
forms littleness  into  magnificence. 

There  is  no  more  common  task  than 
a  mother's  in  the  upbringing  of  her  chil- 
dren. That  task  may  be  so  trifling  that  it 
will  seem  to  proclaim  that  she  is  content 
to  let  death  draw  the  curtain  for  ever. 
Thus  she  may  be  drilling  her  chil- 
dren in  the  mere  amenities  and  clever- 

66 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  INDIVIDUAL 

nesses  of  life.  It  may  be  her  daily  con- 
cern how  they  may  achieve  comrade- 
ship with  this  group  or  that  in  social 
splendour;  how  they  may  shine  in  public 
or  private  speech;  how,  by  some  star- 
tling deed  of  strength  or  skill,  they  may 
lay  hold  of  the  public  admiration;  or 
even  how  they  may,  by  marriage  or  by 
industry,  be  comfortably  provided  with 
abundance  of  goods.  It  seems  as  if  these 
ambitions  showed  the  short  vision  of  a 
good  many  mothers.  Their  work  for 
their  homes  has  not  one  syllable  to  say  of 
immortality:  it  speaks  loudly,  but  all  its 
sounds  are  of  this  life,  and  this  life  only. 
Now  there  is  a  different  sort  of  mother. 
Outwardly  her  home  is  quite  the  same 
as  the  homes  of  these  other  mothers 
whom  I  have  been  describing.  She  is  as 
rich  or  as  poor  as  they;  as  prominent  or 

67 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

as  unknown;  as  charming  or  as  dull; 
as  learned  or  as  ignorant.  All  such 
details  as  these  are  purely  irrelevant. 
When  you  see  this  mother  with  her 
children  you  recognize  at  once  a  subtle 
difference  which  transfigures  her  task 
and  makes  it  shine  as  the  stars  in  heaven. 
She  is  not  indifferent  to  the  pretty  bau- 
bles which  adorn  life;  she  is  pleased  if 
they  come  to  her  children;  but  only  on 
one  condition;  and  that  is,  that  they  do 
not  curb  in  them  a  desire  for  that  which 
is  best  and  highest,  which  no  failure 
can  quench,  and  which  no  success  can 
burn  to  cinders.  She  is  lifting  her  eyes 
to  see  a  distant  scene  which  is  beyond 
the  gates  of  time.  She  dares  to  pray 
for  her  children's  poverty  if  poverty 
means  honour  absolutely  white  and 
clean.  She  dares  to  pray  for  her  chil- 

6S 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  INDIVIDUAL 

dren's  disgrace  in  the  world,  if  perse- 
cution means  that  they  have  obeyed  a 
heavenly  vision.  She  dares  to  pray  for 
her  children's  death,  if  by  dying  they 
may  save  an  heroic  day  for  country 
or  for  truth.  This  mother  lives  some- 
times in  a  cottage,  sometimes  in  a 
palace;  sometimes  in  a  Christian  city, 
sometimes  in  a  heathen  village;  but 
wherever  she  lives,  she  makes  earth 
eloquent  with  immortality.  She  makes 
her  commonplace  task  very  noble. 
Hers  is  a  work  which  cannot  end  with 
time.  She  needs  eternity  to  complete 
it;  and  eternity  she  shall  have. 

You  have  doubtless  read  of  the  aged 
saint  who  would  not  allow  his  portrait 
to  be  painted.  "  For  which  man,"  he 
asked,  "do  you  wish  to  paint?  One  of 
them  is   not  worth  painting,  and   the 

69 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

other  is  not  finished  yet."  That  story 
tells  of  a  man  whose  work  is  to  reach 
out  into  the  infinite.  His  life  is  singing 
of  immortality,  not  because  he  is  soft 
and  fearful,  not  because  he  has  been 
crushed  and  awed  by  conditions  here, 
not  because  he  longs  to  escape  as  from 
a  prison  into  the  expected  peace  of 
heaven,  but  because  he  is  strong  and 
courageous,  because  he  believes  incur- 
ably in  life  and  the  extent  of  its  oppor- 
tunity. He  has  put  his  hand  to  a  task 
so  vast  that,  while  it  can  be  begun 
here,  it  can  only  be  begun.  With  joy 
shall  he  work  upon  it  while  the  light 
of  this  life  shines  over  it;  and  when  the 
night  of  death  draws  down,  he  shall 
still  rejoice,  for  the  morning  comes,  the 
work  shall  go  on.  And  in  God's  bright 
noontide  he  shall  finish  it. 

70 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  INDIVIDUAL 

Immortality  throws  upon  the  indi- 
vidual at  least  four  commanding  re- 
sponsibilities: the  responsibility  to  be 
master  of  himself  in  all  temptations; 
the  responsibility  to  be  courageous  in 
all  the  hard  places  of  experience;  the 
responsibility  to  detach  himself  from 
the  mere  things  of  life ;  and  the  respon- 
sibility to  buckle  to  himself  a  task  so 
great  that  only  eternity  is  long  enough 
to  complete  it.  If  he  fulfils  these  re- 
sponsibilities he  has  already  passed 
from  death  into  the  endless  life.  He 
already  stands  firmly  in  the  high  and 
beautiful  country  of  immortality. 


II 


THE    RESPONSIBILITY   OF   THE   WORLD 
TO    IMMORTALITY 

I 

In  spite  of  efforts,  here  and  there,  to 
escape  the  tendency,  the  world  has  for 
a  good  many  centuries  been  chiefly 
concerned  with  the  individual.  Com- 
petition rather  than  cooperation  has 
been  the  distinctive  note  among  the 
sounds  of  men.  Naturally  enough, 
therefore,  immortality  has  seemed  the 
reward  of  the  individual:  and  individ- 
ual immortality  is  the  only  kind  of  im- 
mortality of  which  the  average  man  has 
any  conception.  It  is  a  wholesome  cor- 
rective to  recall  to  ourselves  that  there 

72 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  THE  WORLD 

have  been  periods  in  the  world's  his- 
tory when  the  only  conception  of  on- 
going life  was  through  the  family  and 
the  nation. 

So  far  as  scholars  can  discover  from 
the  ancient  Scriptures  the  Hebrew  peo- 
ple reached  their  hope  of  individual 
immortality  through  their  longings  to 
perpetuate  their  families,  their  tribes, 
their  nation.  The  growth  of  the  Messi- 
anic idea  was  an  inspiring  vision  of  the 
way  in  which  the  nation  might  not  only 
continue,  but  continue  in  righteousness, 
as  the  people  chosen  by  God  to  be  di- 
rectly under  his  eternal  rule.  We  should 
not  desire  for  a  moment  to  return  to 
the  gloomy  thought  of  Sheol,  as  the 
dim  abode  of  individual  souls  after 
death,  — a  thought  which  characterized 
a  good  deal  of  Old  Testament  theology; 

73 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

but  we  may  with  profit  return  to  that 
other,  larger,  and  positive  conception 
of  the  Old  Testament,  the  belief  that 
groups  of  humanity  as  groups  would  be 
perpetuated.  Incidentally  one  may  add 
that  in  returning  to  it  we  are  bound  to 
relate  it  in  some  way  to  the  hope  of  in- 
dividual immortality,  and,  for  this  and 
other  reasons,  find  for  it  a  much  larger 
content.  But  we  must  recognize  at  once 
the  irresistible  truth  enshrined  in  the 
idea.  "  The  faithful  in  Palestine,"  writes 
a  high  authority,  Dr.  R.  H.  Charles, 
"looked  forward  to  a  blessed  future 
only  as  members  of  the  holy  people,  as 
citizens  of  the  righteous  kingdom  that 
should  embrace  their  brethren.  And 
herein  ...  we  can  trace  the  finger  of 
God;  for  it  was  no  accident  that  his 
servants  were  unable  to  anticipate  any 

74 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  THE  WORLD 

future  blessedness  save  such  as  they 
shared  with  their  brethren  and  nation. 
The  self-centredness,  if  not  selfishness, 
that  marked  the  Greek  doctrine  of  im- 
mortality is  conspicuous  by  its  absence 
in  the  religious  forecasts  of  the  faithful 
in  Judaism.  In  true  religion  unlimited 
individualism  is  an  impossibility.  The 
individual  can  only  attain  to  his  highest 
in  the  life  of  the  community  here  and 
hereafter." 

Think  for  a  moment  of  some  of  the 
groupings  of  humanity  to  which  we 
may  ascribe  more  than  an  earthly 
significance.  The  relationships  of  the 
family,  sacred  on  earth,  must  have  a 
meaning  beyond  time.  The  spirit  of  a 
university  putting  its  mark  upon  gen- 
eration after  generation,  binding  to  it- 
self affection  and  loyalty,  means,  one 

75 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

suspects,  a  durable  influence  in  life  be- 
yond the  grave.  At  this  moment  we 
have  grown  suspicious  of  the  right  of 
the  nation  to  survive,  because  we  are 
seeing  the  privileges  of  patriotism  trav- 
estied by  a  false  ambition ;  but  in  nor- 
mal times  we  feel  that  the  idea  of  na- 
tionality stands  for  something  eternal. 
Then  there  is  the  Church  idea,  uniting 
as  it  does  men  of  many  nations  and 
many  ages  under  one  divine  leader- 
ship, discovering  to  men  that  each 
is  to  love  his  brother  till  all  men  are 
bound  together  in  the  universal  society 
of  lovingkindness.  Beyond  the  ideal 
of  the  Church  it  is  only  a  step  to  the 
relationship  which  men  bear  one  to 
another  simply  because  they  are  alive. 
It  is  the  ideal  of  the  Church  that  it 
should  embrace  the  world;  till  it  does, 

76 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  THE  WORLD 

we  must  think  of  one  more  relation- 
ship which  cannot  die.  There  is  a 
conception  of  a  world-self  which  ap- 
pears again  and  again  in  the  history  of 
thought,  and  by  its  insistence  on  reap- 
pearing leads  us  to  ascribe  to  it  an  eter- 
nal value.  I  purpose  now  to  speak  of 
these  relationships,  one  by  one,  in  a 
little  more  detail. 

In  reflecting  upon  the  immortality  of 
the  family  tie,  we  must  guard  against 
stopping  where  the  religious  man  in 
primitive  ages  stopped.  You  do  not  de- 
clare the  family  immortal  when  you 
think  of  your  descendants  always  going 
on  with  the  peopling  of  the  world  as 
we  now  know  it.  Nevertheless,  we  may 
find  in  what  we  sometimes  call  the  im- 
mortality of  influence  an  important  con- 

77 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

tribution  to  the  assurance  that  a  family 
is  worth  surviving.  Thus  it  means  much 
if  a  father  can  say  to  a  son:  "  So  far  as 
I  know,  our  family  name  has  never  been 
stained  with  dishonour.  Do  you  see  to 
it  that  you  be  not  the  first  to  stain  it 
with  any  meanness  or  untruth."  That 
is  an  entirely  different  thing  from  the 
attempt  to  pass  on  visible  wealth  or  an 
accumulation  of  power.  It  is  a  spiritual 
quality  to  which  the  family  is  beckoned, 
and  therefore  this  quality  may  be  ex- 
pected to  survive, — provided  it  fall  not 
into  the  pit  of  smug  priggishness  or  self- 
deceived  Pharisaism.  We  must  pay 
honest  tribute  to  the  immortality  of  in- 
fluence wherever  we  find  it;  and  not 
least  in  families  which,  from  father  to 
son,  through  centuries,  have  been  self- 
sacrificing  and  unselfish  servants  to  the 

78 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  THE  WORLD 

state  or  some  other  group  of  humanity. 
But  I  have  in  mind  more  than  this. 
Though  we  are  told  on  highest  author- 
ity that  "  in  heaven  they  neither  marry, 
nor  are  given  in  marriage/'  yet  the  es- 
sential truth  embracing  the  mutual  love 
within  a  family  seems  to  have  in  it  a 
power  which  cannot  die:  there  needs 
no  creation  of  new  families  to  maintain 
this.  The  Spartan  mother  who  could 
fire  her  son's  courage,  the  devotion  of 
Penelope  for  her  husband,  the  loyalty 
of  -^Eneas  to  his  father,  the  pain  and 
triumph  of  the  steadfast  Antigone,  all 
show  the  attitude  of  the  Classical  world. 
The  modern  world  has  presented  even 
stronger  ideals  of  family  relationships: 
we  can  never  forget  the  reverence  of 
St.  Augustine  for  his  mother,  the  spir- 
itual  marriage    of   Dante   to   Beatrice 

79 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

which  produced  one  of  the  eternal 
visions  of  the  world,  the  love  of  Sir 
Thomas  More  for  his  daughter,  the 
tenderness  of  Charles  Lamb  for  his 
insane  sister.  Beyond  these  are  the 
types  that  are  almost  too  common  to  be 
chronicled:  the  Anglo-Saxon  type  of 
love  between  husband  and  wife  sym- 
bolized in  Burns's  "John  Anderson  my 
Jo,"  and  the  New  England  type  of  the 
last  century  and  earlier  by  which  one 
son  in  a  family  was  chosen  to  have  a 
college  education  and  a  "  career,"  while 
the  other  children,  with  the  father  and 
the  mother,  stayed  on  the  dreary  farm, 
to  toil,  to  sacrifice,  and  to  pray,  that  the 
fortunate  son  and  brother  might  go 
forth  to  his  opportunity.  Daniel  Web- 
ster came  from  this  sort  of  home,  and 
the  honour  he  gained  is  due  in  largest 

80 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  THE  WORLD 

degree  to  his  obscure  and  unselfish 
father. 

In  the  midst  of  all  this  history  stands 
the  figure  of  the  historic  Christ,  push- 
ing aside  His  unique  career  until  His 
thirtieth  year  that  (if  we  may  trust 
tradition)  He  might  make  a  home  in 
Nazareth  for  His  widowed  mother,  —  a 
carpenter  men  called  Him,  but  He  was 
first  of  all  a  Son.  And  in  the  Middle 
Ages  when  the  monastery  robbed  fam- 
ily life  of  its  full  glory,  worship  was 
accorded  to  the  mother  of  Christ,  so 
giving  to  every  mother  a  consciousness 
of  the  dignity  of  her  own  divine  honour 
in  the  relations  of  humanity. 

I  touch  lightly  upon  these  expres- 
sions of  family  love :  each  one  of  you 
from  his  own  experience  could  expand 
the  list  indefinitely;  but  I  trust  that  I 

8i 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

have  said  enough  to  make  you  feel  that 
there  is  something  in  the  family  rela- 
tionship which  cannot  be  lost  when  the 
life  we  now  know  is  merged  into  the  life 
immortal. 

Consider  now  the  grouping  of  men 
centring  in  enthusiasm  for  a  univer- 
sity. In  contrast  with  a  place  where  a 
conventional  youth  may  spend  several 
conventional  years  of  amusement  min- 
gled with  the  minimum  of  study,  and  in 
contrast  with  the  place  for  acquiring  a 
certain  technical  knowledge  required 
for  a  chosen  work  in  life,  is  the  uni- 
versity idea  realized;  that  is,  a  place 
where  young  men  absorb  the  ideals 
which  have  accumulated  through  dis- 
tinguished teachers  and  through  such 
pupils  as  prove  to  be  geniuses,  catching 

82 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  THE  WORLD 

the  torch  from  the  past,  only  to  fan  its 
fire  to  brighter  light  and  to  pass  it  on 
to  him  who  will  and  can  bear  it.  The 
University  of  Prague  first  did  its  huge 
share  in  making  John  Huss,  and  then 
Huss  became  the  shining  light  of  his 
university,  and  through  the  university 
stood  for  freedom  in  the  world  of  his 
time.  No  one  can  think  of  Abelard, 
without  thinking  of  the  University  of 
Paris,  of  which  his  teaching  was  the 
foundation;  just  as  no  one  can  think  of 
Colet  and  Erasmus  and  Matthew  Ar- 
nold, without  instantly  associating  them 
with  Oxford ;  or  of  Westcott  or  Tenny- 
son without  recalling  Cambridge.  In 
our  own  land  Jonathan  Edwards  is  part 
of  Yale,  and  Yale  is  part  of  Edwards ; 
and  Agassiz  and  Emerson  and  Phillips 
Brooks  are  inseparable  from  Harvard. 

83 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

AH  these  men  caught  something  from 
the  association  with  the  men  and  tradi- 
tions of  their  universities,  either  as  pu- 
pils or  as  teachers,  or  as  both  pupils  and 
teachers,  which  partakes  of  an  immor- 
tal quality.  They  cannot  quite  be  imag- 
ined beyond  time,  without  some  of  the 
relationships  for  which  their  respective 
universities  are  responsible.  Is  it  not 
possible  that  there  is  at  least  an  element 
in  the  idea  of  a  university  which  is  per- 
manent, attaching  to  humanity  however 
and  wherever  it  may  persist? 

We  need  to  guard  against  a  too  stub- 
born and  unyielding  definition  of  uni- 
versity. While  it  is  easy  to  see  the  group, 
inspired  and  inspiring,  in  a  formal  in- 
stitution of  learning,  yet  it  is  undoubted 
that  some  men  discover  the  group 
which  makes  their  real  university  out- 

84 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  THE  WORLD 

side  all  college  walls  and  paths.  The 
little  court  at  Weimar  in  the  days  of 
Goethe  and  Schiller,  the  Lake  School 
of  Poetry  in  England,  and  the  Transcen- 
dentalist  Movement  in  New  England 
were  all,  in  their  way,  exceptionally 
able  universities.  I  remember  that  sev- 
eral years  ago  an  English  clergyman 
told  me  that  he  had  in  his  parish  a  day 
labourer  who  spent  his  evenings  in  the 
study  of  botany.  This  man  had  acquired 
so  profound  a  knowledge  of  botany  that 
he  was  the  welcome  correspondent  of 
some  of  the  most  celebrated  botanists  of 
Europe :  his  letters  were  his  university, 
—  it  was  not  mere  information  which 
these  letters  brought  to  him,  but  joy  in 
their  friendship,  and  incentive  to  attain 
what  might  bring  joy  in  turn  to  his  un- 
seen friends. 

85 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

When  we  think  of  the  nation,  we 
must  take  into  account  the  emotions, 
almost  religions,  which  the  nation  has 
aroused  in  the  lives  of  patriots.  It  is 
sometimes  said  that  the  reason  why 
men  may  be  expected  to  die  for  their 
country,  in  case  of  their  country's  ex- 
tremity, is  that  a  man  is  immortal,  and  a 
nation  is  not.  But  a  man  would  also  die 
for  his  friend,  if  his  love  were  complete: 
there  both  factors  in  the  sacrifice  are 
immortal.  Accordingly,  we  may  think 
it  an  added  reason  why  a  man  should 
die  for  his  country,  not  that  by  his  death 
he  should  maintain  his  country's  name 
on  the  face  of  the  map  a  year  or  two 
longer,  but  that  by  the  abandonment 
characterizing  his  loyalty  he  should 
raise,  if  by  ever  so  little,  the  standard 
of  his  country's  glory,  both  for  an  exist- 

86 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  THE  WORLD 

ence  here  and  for  an  immortality  in  the 
vast  regions  unseen. 

When  a  great  English  statesman  was 
mourning  the  death  of  Abraham  Lin- 
coln, he  brought  himself  out  of  despair 
for  a  cause  which  he  held  to  be  sacred, 
by  saying,  "It  is  easy  to  kill  a  President, 
it  is  not  easy  to  destroy  a  nation."  If 
this  could  be  said  of  a  nation  less  than  a 
century  old,  what  might  one  say  of  the 
civilization  of  Greece,  of  Rome,  of 
France,  or  of  England?  Nations  have 
been  born,  have  slowly  developed,  have 
reached  a  zenith,  and  then  have  gradu- 
ally or  suddenly  seemed  to  give  place 
to  other  powers:  in  the  course  of  this 
history,  however,  they  have  attached  to 
themselves  the  devotion  of  millions 
upon  millions  of  immortal  souls.  If  you 
think  of  immortality  at  all,  it  seems  to 

87 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

me  rational  that  an  idea  like  that  of  a 
nation  should  survive  with  those  indi- 
viduals who  find  it  the  source  of  en- 
kindling life.  As  we  dream  of  the  here- 
after may  we  not  expect  to  find  in  its 
boundless  and  varied  expression  the 
perfection  of  what  on  earth  we  have 
known  as  the  national  spirit,  only  that 
the  imperfect  Rome,  both  as  Republic 
and  as  Empire,  should  be  rounded  out 
into  the  perfection  of  which  its  earthly 
type  was  the  promise,  and  so  with  all 
the  great  nations  before  and  since  ?  In 
so  far  as  we  find  patriotism  a  spiritual 
quality,  just  in  so  far  must  we  ascribe 
to  it  a  lasting  power.  We  are  in  dan- 
ger, through  timidity  of  imagination,  of 
stripping  our  immortality  so  bare  that  it 
might  seem  to  lack  the  vigour  and  in- 
terest which  have  made  life  worthy  this 

88 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  THE  WORLD 

side  of  death.  Among  the  relationships 
which  have  meant  most  to  men's  higher 
achievement  is  the  relationship  existing 
in  the  nation,  and  that  relationship,  in 
some  form,  higher  than  we  can  possibly 
anticipate,  must  survive  the  shock  of 
earthly  history. 

We  climb  to  a  potentially  higher  re- 
lationship when  we  think  of  the  individ- 
ual's merging  his  indentity  in  the  life  of 
the  Christian  Church.  By  the  Christian 
Church  I  do  not  mean  anyone  Commun- 
ion or  limited  group  of  Communions:  I 
mean,  difficult  as  it  is  to  define  and  cir- 
cumscribe, the  Church  Universal,  a  body 
of  men,  seen  and  unseen,  who,  in  spite 
of  defects  of  organization,  in  spite  of 
distortions  of  truth  by  addition  or  sub- 
traction, have  on  the  whole  been  faith- 

89 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

ful  to  one  another  and  to  the  best  that 
has  been  revealed  to  them,  so  that 
Christ  could  really  be  thought  to  be 
their  head.  There  are  lamentable  chap- 
ters in  the  history  of  the  Church,  fraught 
with  bitterness  and  strife,  with  worldli- 
ness  and  self-seeking,  with  bigotry  and 
persecution,  with  hypocrisy  and  hate, 
with  corruption  and  worse  than  death. 
But  there  are  other  chapters  correspond- 
ingly rejoicing :  they  tell  of  the  heroism 
of  the  early  martyrs,  of  the  clear-sighted 
courage  of  reformers,  of  the  simple 
goodness  of  such  officers  as  Victor  Hugo 
depicted  in  the  Bishop  of  Les  Mis'e^ 
rabies  or  as  Ian  Maclaren  described  in 
the  Pastor  of  Drumtochty,  of  the  con- 
quest of  temptation  in  cottage  and  pal- 
ace, of  the  man  who  is  inwardly  con- 
verted from  a  life  of  hardness  and  sin 

90 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  THE  WORLD 

to  a  life  of  tenderness  and  love.  As  base 
politicians  may  disgrace  the  name  of 
patriotism,  so  base  intriguers  may  dis- 
grace the  name  of  churchmanship.  But, 
all  other  things  being  equal,  a  man  who 
is  loyal  to  the  ideals  of  the  Church,  who 
is  faithful  to  its  Head  and  to  his  fellow- 
members,  who  keeps  the  laws  of  the 
Church  and  lifts  his  eyes  to  its  Gospel, 
is  a  happier  and  better  man  than  the 
man  who,  like  Gallio,  cares  for  none  of 
these  things. 

We  sometimes  hear  that  the  Church 
is  only  for  this  dispensation:  it  is  for 
the  through-a-glass-darkly  stage  of  life; 
when  this  age  is  over  we  shall  have 
something  better.  There  we  may  catch 
up  the  words:  yes,  something  better; 
that  is,  the  Church  made  perfect;  the 
Church  will  be  changed,  but  we  shall 

91 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

be  able  to  identify  it.  Of  old,  it  was  cus- 
tomary to  speak  of  the  Church  Militant, 
being  the  Church  on  Earth ;  the  Church 
Expectant,  being  the  Church  in  Para- 
dise; and  the  Church  Triumphant,  be- 
ing the  Church  of  the  last  stage,  when 
all  is  made  perfect  in^  Heaven.  Orders 
and  ceremonies  may  easily  pass  away; 
but  the  purity  of  heart,  the  loyalty  unto 
death,  the  love  of  utter  self-forgetful- 
ness,  all  of  which  the  Church  tries  with 
its  life-blood  to  cultivate,  cannot  pass. 
Other  forms  of  expression  the  Church 
may  readily  accept,  provided  the  reali- 
ties which  live  within  any  outward  cov- 
ering go  onward  with  strength. 

The  main  reason  why  we  must  think 
of  the  immortality  of  the  Church  is  that 
we  cannot  think  it  enough  to  approach 
God  only  one  by  one;  we  must  by  some 

92 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  THE  WORLD 

device  come  to  do  him  homage  as  hu- 
manity, as  members  one  of  another. 
Each  one  of  us  ought  to  be  so  full  of 
gratitude  and  praise  that  he  should  de- 
sire to  have  his  imperfections  neutral- 
ized and  transcended  by  the  virtues  of 
others;  and,  if  by  any  merciful  provi^ 
dence,  through  good  parents  and  devout 
teachers,  any  one  of  us  has  been  able 
to  escape  grievous  falls  into  sin,  that 
strength,  so  won  and  maintained,  ought 
to  be  shared  with  those  less  fortunate. 
It  is  good  that  the  single  voice  utters 
its  praise  from  the  lonely  places  of  life; 
but  there  is  the  wonder  of  the  many 
voices,  blending  with  the  strings  of 
many  instruments,  and  so  making  what 
seems  the  perfection  of  praise,  the  ex- 
pression of  humanity  and  not  of  an  indi- 
vidual, all  variety  tending  to  the  amaz- 

93 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

ing  harmony.  The  longing  to  be  lost  in 
such  a  company  cannot  be  confined  to 
a  few  years  of  earthly  life:  the  Church 
in  Heaven  —  the  Church  Triumphant 
—  must  long  to  utter  that  praise  of  the 
heart  which  is  now  silent,  but  which 
must  then  be  vocal,  the  very  summit  of 
all  harmony,  when  the  individual  does 
his  share  but  is  lost  in  the  rejoicing  of 
the  whole. 

Then  there  is  the  other  side  of  the 
shield.  Here  we  must  say  our  general 
confessions,  confessing  the  sins  which 
we  as  individuals  never  did,  but  the  bur- 
den of  which  we  must  share,  because 
we  are  members  one  of  another,  and 
we  have  the  Spirit  of  our  Master,  who, 
perfect,  bore  the  sins  of  the  grossly  im- 
perfect. We  have  enough  of  His  love 
to  dare  to  be  shorn  of  our  strength  if  it 

.    94 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  THE  WORLD 

may  make  those  weaker  than  ourselves 
more  nearly  strong.  When  the  light  of 
the  heavenly  country  shall  break  upon 
us  we  dare  to  believe  that  sin  shall  have 
been  transcended;  but  moral  progress 
is  still  possible  when  sin  is  absent.  The 
orthodox  theologian  has  always  taught 
that  the  sinless  Christ  grew  in  favour 
with  God  as  well  as  with  man.  The  saint- 
hood cannot  be  thought  of  as  one  of 
monotonous  evenness:  some  must  have 
attained  excellence  in  one  virtue,  others 
in  another.  The  range  from  innocence 
to  Christlike  perfection  is  an  infinite 
distance,  and  the  saints  must  be  ever 
climbing  towards  the  ideals  which  shall 
ever  tower  above  them  in  the  light  of 
a  divine  presence.  So  the  characteristic 
of  the  Church  which  impels  men  here 
to  bear  the  burdens  of  the  weak,  will 

95 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

surely  impel  those  who  have  been  able 
to  climb  high  to  reach  down  hands  of 
help  to  those  who  struggle  below  them. 
Thus  the  praise  and  the  service  of  the 
Church  can  be  thought  to  go  on  through 
the  unceasing  years  of  eternity. 

For  all  these  reasons  we  cannot  im- 
agine immortality  for  the  individual 
without  imagining  an  immortality  for 
the  relationships  cherished  within  the 
Church.  It  is  quite  likely  that  the  most 
wordy  and  self-possessed  of  Church- 
men here  will  reach  the  new  life  to 
find  nothing  there  which  they  will 
think  ought  to  be  called  the  Church: 
it  will  not,  to  their  mind,  be  rigid 
enough,  or  narrow  enough,  or  indefinite 
enough,  or  soft  enough.  And  so  they 
will  think  that  the  Church  has  vanished 
in  the  mists  of  earth.    But  surely  they 

96 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  THE  WORLD 

will  discover  that  the  ideals  for  which 
the  Church  at  its  best  has  always  strug- 
gled will  be  held  aloft  by  a  body  of 
faithful  men  which  cannot  be  num- 
bered ;  and  slowly  they  will  see  on  the 
clouds  of  heaven  the  light  of  the  true 
Church,  generous  enough  to  claim  all 
who  try  to  be  true  and  good,  convinc- 
ing enough  to  make  all  see  the  truth 
and  to  walk  joyfully  in  its  straight  and 
beautiful  road.  And  that  is  the  Church 
which  must  last  for  ever. 

All  these  relationships  of  which  I 
have  spoken  as  knitting  individuals  to- 
gether in  the  family,  the  university,  the 
nation,  and  the  Church,  are  suggestive 
of  others,  notably  friendship.  Friend- 
ship may  scarcely  be  named  alone,  be- 
cause its  basis  of  love  and  comradeship 

97 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

is  the  texture  which  makes  vital  the 
relationships  upon  which  I  have  dwelt. 
I  have  said  enough,  I  trust,  to  demon- 
strate that  we  must  think  of  relation- 
ships existing  among  individuals  them- 
selves and  then  between  individuals 
and  that  immeasurable  wholeness,  which 
is  the  whole  human  family  and  includes 
all  the  souls  whom  the  Lord  God  has 
made  or  shall  make.  This  wholeness 
may  be  symbolized  in  the  language  of 
to-day  under  the  title  of  the  federation 
of  all  nations  or  the  organic  unity  of 
the  Church.  This  is  to  conceive  that 
even  in  this  world  men  might  appre- 
ciate the  ultimate  desirability  of  dis- 
covering a  way  by  which  humanity 
might  not  compete  or  fight,  but  re- 
member only  that  it  exists  for  each  of 
its  individual  members  equally  with  all 

98 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  THE  WORLD 

the  rest,  and  for  the  God  from  whom  it 
comes  and  to  whom  it  goes. 

If  we  have  the  conviction  that  these 
relationships  are  immortal,  we  must 
ask  how  we  can  show  our  sense  of  re- 
sponsibility towards  their  immortality. 
How  shall  we  live  towards  them  in 
this  life  that  we  shall  demonstrate  our 
faith  in  their  noble  continuance?  In 
answering  this  question,  I  shall  not 
again  take  up  the  various  relationships 
one  by  one,  but  I  shall  attempt  to  de- 
scribe certain  principles  which  may 
apply  to  all  of  them,  illustrating  the 
principles  now  from  one  and  now  from 
another  of  the  relationships.  In  general, 
we  may  ask  how  we  shall  live  towards 
the  relationships  here  existing  between 
the  individual  and  the  world-self,  that 

99 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

we  may  reach  the  next  stage  in  life  able 
to  recognize  the  immortal  life,  in  its 
corporate  expression,  which  we  with 
our  fellows  have  been  storing  up  in 
these  days  of  preparation  and  oppor- 
tunity. 

n 

The  first  word  I  put  down  is  Dis- 
crimination; which  means  sense  of 
proportion,  with  the  attending  sacrifice 
of  all  that  is  less  worthy  for  the  sake 
of  that  which  is  best.  The  application 
of  this  principle  for  individuals  is  gen- 
erally recognized.  It  is  not  recognized 
always  for  the  corporate  life  of  groups 
of  individuals.  A  man  who  would  not 
fail  to  be  a  gentleman,  a  man  of  integ- 
rity and  honour,  as  an  individual,  will 
sometimes  be  a  boor,  a  scoundrel,  and 

loo 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  THE  WORLD 

a  liar  when  he  acts,  as  he  supposes,  in 
the  interest  of  his  country.  Could  he 
possibly  be  so  transformed,  if  he  be- 
lieved that  his  country  had  an  immor- 
tal value  which  lasted  beyond  the  sights 
and  sounds  of  this  world  ?  I  think  not, 
—  at  least  if  he  could  and  did  reflect. 

Sooner  or  later  the  reader  of  his- 
tory and  biography  sees  that  an  indi- 
vidual is  only  humanity  in  the  small, 
and  humanity  is  only  the  individual  in 
the  large.  As  an  individual  grows, 
reaches  his  power,  and  declines,  so  a 
nation  or  a  church  goes  through  the 
processes  of  growth  and  decay,  —  and 
for  exactly  the  same  causes.  There- 
fore it  is  as  dangerous  for  a  nation  to 
gain  the  whole  world  and  to  lose  its 
own  soul  as  it  is  for  an  individual  to 
do  so.   "  If  thine  eye  offend  thee,  pluck 

lOI 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

it  out,  and  cast  it  from  thee,"  is  a  com- 
mandment to  groups  of  men  as  well  as 
to  men  one  by  one:  and  the  solemn 
alternative  is  as  fatal  for  one  as  for  the 
other. 

The  world  learns  to  apply  this  prin- 
ciple to  smaller  groups  before  it  grasps 
the  fact  that  it  must  apply  it  to  all 
groups  to  the  utmost  limit  of  compre- 
hension. For  instance,  when  two  uni- 
versities are  engaged  in  some  signifi- 
cant athletic  contest,  it  is  often  difficult 
to  make  the  eager  rivals  understand 
that  it  is  more  important  to  play  the 
game  absolutely  fairly  than  it  is  to  gain 
the  victory.  All  that  is  best  in  each  uni- 
versity insists  upon  this  code  of  honour, 
dismayed  as  it  may  be  at  the  thought 
of  defeat.  An  institution  which  has  that 
sense  of  proportion  among  all  its  mem- 

I02 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  THE  WORLD 

bers,  however  young,  will  not  pass  like 
a  mushroom  growth,  but  will  last. 

Now,  it  is  quite  possible  that  a  man 
who,  in  his  private  affairs  and  in  such 
smaller  groupings  as  that  of  the  uni- 
versity, had  been  entirely  honourable, 
might  think  himself  justified  in  taking 
the  responsibility  of  doing  a  dastardly 
act  or  speaking  a  contemptible  lie  to 
save,  as  he  would  say,  his  country. 
Think  of  two  nations  at  war.  One,  let  us 
imagine,  for  what  it  declares  self-preser- 
vation, ignores  treaties  solemnly  sworn, 
throws  international  law  to  the  winds, 
and  in  general  conducts  its  warfare  not 
as  gentlemen  might  do,  but  as  highway 
ruffians.  The  justification  of  such  con- 
duct is  that  war  made  so  devilish  that 
its  frightfulness  is  soon  over,  is  on  the 
whole  the  most  merciful;  but  the  real 

103 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

reason  is  a  desperate  haste  to  win  at  any 
cost.  The  other  nation,  let  us  imagine, 
starts  its  warfare  with  the  firm  resolve  to 
regard  treaties  and  international  laws;^ 
the  provocation  of  the  enemy  to  retali- 
ate with  forbidden  methods  may  be  se- 
riously tempting;  but  by  the  insistence 
of  staunch  rulers,  though  there  be  tem- 
porary loss  and  even  risk  of  ultimate 
defeat,  the  nation  maintains  its  honour. 
While  it  fights  hard,  it  fights  squarely. 
Like  a  noble  individual,  it  says  to  itself 
and  to  the  world, "  Rather  than  do  cer- 
tain things,  I  prefer  to  die." 

There  we  have  the  contrast.  What  is 
the  result?  Again  and  again  in  history 
it  has  been  proved,  as  of  the  individual, 
so  of  the  nation,  that  he  that  saveth  his 
life  shall  lose  it;  and  contrariwise,  that 
he  that  loseth  his  life  for  Righteousness' 

104 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  THE  WORLD 

sake  shall  find  it.  To  trample  on  sacred 
rights  in  order  to  maintain  or  enlarge  a 
physical  existence  may  win  a  battle  or 
even  a  war,  but  the  very  success  of  the 
villainy  strangles  the  nation  itself.  A 
nation  raised  to  material  magnificence 
may  in  the  adventure  so  outrage  human 
ideals  that  it  will  di'sgust  the  best  of  its 
own  sons,  who  will  steadily  discover 
that  they  cannot  defend  a  nation  which 
has  filth  in  its  skirts.  After  enormous 
conquest  a  nation  may  suddenly  drop 
apart.  It  may  have  lived  to  the  flesh 
and  have  died  to  the  spirit:  what  was 
earthly  and  temporal  may  have  been  so 
magnified  that  the  immortal  part  shriv- 
elled. Bourbon  France  died,  not  be- 
cause the  mob  was  violent,  but  because 
the  really  noble  and  strong  could  not 
defend  a  pleasure-seeking,  selfish,  rotted 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

civilization.  France  had  too  long  been 
in  the  throes  of  the  fatal  illness  of  hav- 
ing had  the  supposedly-glorious  reign 
of  Louis  XIV. 

If  there  is  any  nation  in  the  wars  of 
to-day  which  is  saying  that  anything  is 
right  for  self-preservation,  and  is  acting 
accordingly,  it  is  searing  with  devilish 
tools  its  own  immortal  existence.  Any 
nation  which  remembers  that  it  has  an 
immortal  life  to  guard  and  to  pass  on 
will  live,  not  for  a  passing  victory,  but 
for  the  eternal  years,  wherein  only  what 
is  brave  and  true  can  survive.  In  the 
immortal  life  the  most  ignominious 
defeats  may  prove  to  be  the  most  per- 
manent victories,  because  the  sense  of 
proportion  was  kept,  and  the  utmost 
sacrifice,  even  of  what  seemed  life  itself, 
was  not  shirked, 

io6  ^ 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  THE  WORLD 

Other  aspects  of  this  law  of  discrimi- 
nation appear  in  a  nation  like  our  own, 
which  boldly  announces  that  it  offers  a 
home  for  the  oppressed  of  other  lands, 
and  endeavours  to  give  every  man  who 
enters  the  life  of  the  nation  an  equal 
opportunity.  Setting  aside  the  ambition 
of  certain  leaders,  who  import  cheap 
labour  in  order  to  develop  rapidly  our 
natural  resources,  we  may  believe  that 
America  is  sincere  in  its  wish  to  offer, 
not  only  an  asylum,  but  a  real  chance 
of  larger  life.  But  the  danger  is  start- 
ling. A  biologist  has  recently  pointed 
out  that  "  whatever  the  present  antipa- 
thies may  be  to  racial  mixtures,  we  may 
rest  assured  that  in  a  few  hundred  years 
these  persons  of  foreign  race  and  blood 
will  be  incorporated  in  our  race  and  we 
in  theirs."  We  know  also  from  biology 

107 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

that  while  such  fusion  may  raise  the 
lower  race,  it  is  likely  to  pull  down  the 
higher  race.  We  are  therefore  facing, 
with  our  eyes  open,  the  problem  of  im- 
migration to  this  country.  If  we  were  a 
nation  living  for  a  few  hundred  years 
we  might  hesitate.  But  when  we  re- 
member that  we  are  a  nation  partaking 
of  immortality,  we  know  that  we  must 
discriminate,  hold  the  ideal  with  its  at- 
tending risk  before  us,  and  make  the 
necessary  sacrifice  for  the  accomplish- 
ing of  our  distinctive,  God-giving  des- 
tiny. 

And  this  consideration  leads  to  an- 
other. We  know  well  enough  that  the 
wealth  of  a  nation,  as  Ruskin  taught 
us,  is  the  well-being  of  all  its  people. 
We  are  aware  therefore  that  for  our 
children's  sakes,  as  well  as  for  the  sake 

io8 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  THE  WORLD 

of  the  poor  themselves,  we  must  see 
that  conditions  improve  among  the  less 
fortunate.  A  bad  drain  in  a  poor  quar- 
ter of  the  city  may  bring  a  pestilence 
which  shall  reach  into  the  wide  avenues 
of  the  prosperous.  But  if  we  are  really 
discriminating,  we  know  that  no  selfish 
philosophy  will  give  us  the  motive  to 
help  the  submerged  part  of  the  com- 
munity as  we  ought.  If  our  nation  is 
conceived  to  be  really  immortal,  we 
shall  be  concerned,  not  only  for  the  out- 
ward surroundings  of  those  less  com- 
fortable than  ourselves;  we  shall  see 
also  that  their  spirits  are  nourished. 
We  shall  think  about  the  highest  ele- 
ments in  their  well-being,  as  well  as 
of  our  own.  We  shall  look  into  their 
places  of  amusement  to  assure  our- 
selves that  while  they  are  thoroughly 

109 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

interesting,  they  shall  at  the  same  time 
be  clean,  wholesome,  elevating.  We 
shall  see  that  the  beauty  of  a  genuine 
art  shall  adorn  their  churches.  By  a 
companionship  growing  to  friendship 
we  shall,  without  patronage,  give  of 
our  inner  strength  to  receive  in  return 
their  inner  strength,  gained  by  fortitude 
and  by  love  in  hard  conditions.  Because 
they  and  we  make  up  a  nation  which  is 
immortal,  we  shall  not  stop  with  the 
material  benefits  which  it  is  right  that 
we  share,  but  we  shall  discriminate,  we 
shall  fix  our  attention  primarily  upon 
the  deep  things  in  the  life  of  all  individ- 
uals which  in  turn  make  the  essential 
and  continuing  life  of  the  nation. 

When  the  Cathedral  at  Rheims  was 
being  bombarded,  in  the  fall  of  19 14,  a 
cry  of  indignation  arose  from  the  world, 

no 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  THE  WORLD 

because  this  ancient  church  was  likely 
to  be  wholly  destroyed.  Apparently  not 
even  the  death  of  tens  of  thousands  of 
French  soldiers  had  so  scandalized  the 
French  nation  and  its  friends.  Some 
people  said  that  God  was  dishonoured, 
because  it  was  the  place  of  His  worship; 
but  other  churches  had  been  destroyed, 
and  long  ago  Christians  had  been  taught 
that  God's  worship  is  not  confined  to 
sacred  places,  like  Gerizim  or  Sion,  but 
that  men  may  anywhere  worship  God 
in  spirit  and  in  truth.  And,  besides, 
many  joined  in  the  outcry  who  were 
not  interested  in  religion.  It  was  for 
some  people  doubtless  an  artistic  in- 
stinct which  was  offended.  There  might 
be  another  church  as  beautiful  in  its 
way;  or  this  ruin  might  be  restored; 
but  the  exact  structure,  with  its  associa- 

III 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

tions  of  French  history,  with  its  time- 
coloured  stones,  with  its  suggestion  of 
reverence  for  the  past,  could  not  be 
replaced.  There  was  here  the  instinc- 
tive recognition  that  there  was  some- 
thing immortal  in  the  reverent  work  of 
the  architects  and  builders  who  gave 
their  lives  to  make  Rheims  Cathedral 
what  it  had  become.  It  was  the  out- 
ward and  visible  expression  of  the  un- 
seen life  of  France:  first  there  had 
been  the  plan  in  the  mind  of  the  archi- 
tect, then  the  assembling  of  the  stones, 
then  the  carving  day  by  day  of  pillar 
and  wall  and  buttress,  of  arch  and 
tracery  and  roof.  There  kings  had  been 
crowned.  There  men  had  wept  and  re- 
joiced. There  men  had  felt  the  presence 
of  the  Most  High.  What  the  church 

stood  for  was  immortal :  it  stood  for  the 

■» 

112 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  THE  WORLD 

spirit  of  France.  And  as  men  weep 
over  the  body  of  a  dead  friend,  so  pa- 
triots wept  over  the  symbol  that  for 
centuries  had  been,  as  it  were,  the 
body  of  France.  But  their  very  weep- 
ing showed  that  they  believed  in  an  un- 
dying spirit  of  the  French  nation.  The 
cathedral  could  have  been  saved  by  an 
abject  surrender  to  the  invaders,  but 
that  would  have  been  sacrificing  the 
immortal  part  of  France  to  its  temporal 
expression.  Rather,  through  their  tears, 
they  preferred  to  see  the  French  world 
crumble  and  fall  to  dust,  that  the  soul 
of  France  might  be  saved. 

If  any  institution,  grouping  human- 
ity, is  conscious  of  its  immortal  dignity, 
it  will  show  the  fact  by  its  discrimina- 
tion, its  sense  of  proportion,  its  willing 
sacrifice  of  the  little  for  the  great. 

113 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

III 

The  second  word  I  enter  as  a  sign 

of  our  corporate  immortality  is  Truth. 
We  may  think  of  truth  as  accuracy  or 
as  light.  In  the  former  case  it  is  mathe- 
matical, in  a  fashion  negative ;  it  is  anx- 
ious, lest  it  commit  errors.  In  the  latter 
case  it  is  spiritual,  poetical;  it  cannot 
hope  to  be  exact  and  final  in  any  utter- 
ance, for  in  the  blaze  of  light  in  which 
it  stands  it  looks  out,  not  towards  dark- 
ness, but  towards  indefinite  ranges  of 
light,  and  it  does  not  dare  to  say  that  it 
has  seen  all  or  can  see  all.  It  is  this 
latter  aspect  of  truth  which  compels  us 
to  seek  it,  not 'one  by  one,  but  as  co- 
labourers  in  various  groups,  and  by  im- 
agination at  least  in  a  universal  human- 
ity which  includes  all  men  of  all  ages, 
past,  present,  and  to  come. 

114 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  THE  WORLD 

'  In  the  nineteenth  century  one  of  the 
heated  discussions  about  truth  was 
whether  anything  could  be  averred  to 
be  knowable.  There  is  the  pebble  on 
the  sands,  said  a  popular  philosopher: 
you  see  it  and  think  you  know  it;  but 
to  know  it,  you  must  know  its  history, 
and  that  involves  a  knowledge  of  all  the 
geological  ages  through  which  it  has 
passed;  moreover,  it  has  been  worn  to 
its  present  roundness  and  smoothness 
by  innumerable  tides,  and  this  fact  in- 
sists that  we  know  the  history  of  the 
influence  of  the  heavenly  bodies  upon 
the  earth.  So  a  relentless  logic  then 
says  that  to  be  quite  thorough  we  must 
know  the  secrets  of  all  the  universe,  for 
the  whole  universe  has  had  its  influence 
upon  that  pebble  lying  modestly  on  the 
sand.  The  nineteenth  century  was  con- 

"5 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

siderably  impressed  with  this  exposi- 
tion of  the  unknowable;  but  at  length 
it  shook  itself  free  from  this  exclusive 
view  of  truth  as  a  concept  of  mere  neg- 
ative accuracy.  Men  arose  who  said 
that  to  have  infinite  spaces  of  ignorance 
is  not  to  condemn  the  knowledge  which 
we  do  have;  and  so,  in  the  place  of  the 
unknowable,  they  placed  the  idea  of 
the  unknown.  In  that  moment  philos- 
ophy took  into  account  the  immortality 
of  the  race,  for  there  was  the  vision  that 
humanity  as  an  interrelated  whole,  made 
up  of  individuals  and  groups  of  individ- 
uals, should  go  out  upon  this  endless 
quest  of  knowing  the  truth.  There  was 
to  be  the  endless  attainment  of  the  truth : 
humanity  was  not  only  to  seek,  but,  as 
it  had  found  truth  in  the  past,  so  it  should 
go  on  finding  it  through  eternity.  And 

ii6 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  THE  WORLD 

to  live  with  such  an  endless  end  in  view 
is  to  live  as  if  the  race  were  immortal. 
Through  the  same  years  when  this 
discussion  was  proceeding,  there  was 
the  rise  in  all  departments  of  knowledge 
of  what  we  call  specialists.  Time  had 
been  when  a  member  of  any  learned 
profession  expected  to  have  about  the 
same  fund  of  information  which  his 
neighbour  had  acquired.  Then  a  small 
section  of  the  field  was  chosen  to  be  as 
thoroughly  known  as  possible.  Thus 
that  valuable  member  of  the  commun- 
ity known  as  the  family  physician  is  to- 
day either  supplanted  or,  more  wisely, 
supplemented.  When  he  finds  a  disease 
too  perplexing  for  his  own  general 
fund  of  knowledge  and  skill,  the  fam- 
ily physician  turns  to  the  specialist 
who  gives  his  whole  time  to  the  study 

117 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

of  that  especial  disease :  he  may  consult 
him,  personally  or  through  one  of  his 
books;  or  he  may  turn  the  case  quite 
over  to  him.  So  it  is  with  all  branches 
of  knowledge.  We  appreciate  as  our 
fathers  did  not  appreciate  that  search 
for  truth  is  a  cooperative  pursuit.  While 
one  is  busied  over  one  tiny  corner, 
others  are  cultivating  their  particular 
plots,  and  in  some  way  these  sectional 
accomplishments  are  brought  together 
as  the  years  pass,  and  the  great  body 
of  truth  is  increased.  For  no  sane  dis- 
coverer dares  to  isolate  his  findings;  he 
must  relate  his  discovery  to  the  dis- 
coveries of  other  men,  lest  his  unre- 
lated truth  turn  upon  him,  as  it  were, 
and  contradict  itself.  It  is  not  only 
groups  of  humanity  here  and  there  who 
must  search  for  the  truth;  but  it  is  all 

ii8 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  THE  WORLD 

groups  bound  together  as  one  organism 
which  in  the  last  analysis  can  be  trusted 
to  give  a  solid  verdict.  Zoology  and 
medicine  and  electricity  and  poetry  and 
theology  and  biology  and  art  and  geol- 
ogy and  history  are  but  a  few  of  the  de- 
partments which  must  not  only  gather 
up  their  specializations  within  them- 
selves, but  must  cast  them  down  before 
an  all-inclusive  synthesis.  When  hu- 
manity holds  before  itself  the  ideal  of 
seeking  the  truth,  that  moment  it  pos- 
tulates its  immortality.  For  only  eter- 
nity is  long  enough  to  complete  the 
search. 

The  university  is  the  group  within 
humanity  whose  primary  function  is  to 
seek  the  truth.  Other  groups  may  seem 
at  least  to  have  the  truth  subordinated, 
however  slightly,  to  some  other  quality, 

119 


/ 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

such  as  physical  welfare,  or  spiritual 
salvation,  or  love.  A  university  is  sup- 
posed to  be  created  and  to  exist  for  the 
search  of  the  truth,  at  whatever  penalty 
to  what  are  called  more  practical  inter- 
ests. If  the  truth  discovered  compels  a 
revolution  in  the  Church,  the  university 
must  contend  for  that  revolution.  If  it 
shows  that  a  modern  state  is  advancing 
upon  falsehood,  there  again  the  univer- 
sity must  foster  revolution.  If  it  shows 
that  an  accepted  system  of  economics  is 
not  based  upon  truth,  it  must  face  the 
epithets  of  scorn  which  always  include 
the  word  "academic,"  and  plead  for  a 
revolution  in  business. 

This  quiet  search  for  the  truth  is  full 
of  hazard.  Every  university,  to  be  a 
university,  must  be  free.  This  will 
doubtless  give    liberty   to   the   erratic 

I20 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  THE  WORLD 

teacher  whose  prejudices  and  dreams 
will  make  him  teach  lies.  But  it  is  better 
to  have  the  defects  of  the  quality  than  not 
to  have  complete  freedom;  for  out  of  it 
will  come  the  earnestness  which  makes 
a  teacher  not  only  diligent  in  seeking 
the  truth  but  most  carefully  responsible 
in  uttering  that  only  which  he  is  thor- 
oughly convinced  to  be  true:  he  will 
often  say,  "I  do  not  know,"  or  "I  can 
see  no  farther  than  that."  And  the  ul- 
timate safety  is  in  the  community  of 
teachers;  for  the  errors  of  one  will  be 
offset  and  corrected  by  the  clearheaded- 
ness of  others.  The  university  is  com- 
mitted to  the  immortal  task  of  finding 
and  declaring  the  truth;  and  the  seri- 
ousness and  honesty  of  its  conception 
of  its  function  will  denote  whether  it  is 
ephemeral  or  eternal. 

121 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

Within  this  function  of  the  univer- 
sity is  its  will  to  inspire  in  the  young  a 
love  of  the  truth.  It  is  no  accident  that 
on  the  seals  of  many  universities  we  find 
among  other  words  Veritas^  lux^  or  illu" 
minatio.  Such  words  are  as  beacons 
shining  over  the  hills  of  knowledge. 
The  story  is  told  of  Spencer  and  Hux- 
ley that  one  day  they  were  speaking 
together  of  the  satisfactions  of  their 
individual  lives.  "When  I  am  gone,'' 
said  Spencer,  "  my  only  hope  is  that 
I  shall  have  accomplished  something 
which  shall  be  associated  with  my 
name  in  the  future."  To  this  Huxley 
answered,  "  I  do  not  care  for  so  much 
as  that:  all  I  want  to  be  sure  of  is  that, 
when  I  am  done,  the  truth  shall  have 
had  a  little  push."  Huxley's  is  the  true 
university  spirit.   That  is  the  zeal  for 

122 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  THE  WORLD 

truth  which  every  university  must  de- 
sire to  give  to  its  pupils. 

I  remember  hearing  many  years 
ago,  in  an  academic  classroom,  an  in- 
spiring lecture  on  the  Epistle  to  the 
Romans.  The  teacher  was  giving  his 
exposition  with  shining  eyes:  St.  Paul 
seemed  to  live  before  that  little  group 
of  young  men.  Then  some  one  asked 
what  St.  Paul  meant  by  a  certain  sen- 
tence. "  I  don't  know,"  was  the  answer 
of  the  wise  scholar.  "That  is  one  of 
the  questions  I  intend  to  ask  St.  Paul 
when  I  see  him."  That  man  inspired 
in  his  listeners  a  love  of  the  truth. 
Truth  was  seen  to  be  an  immortal 
search:  this  world  was  not  enough  for 
even  a  decent  beginning  in  the  search 
for  it.  Questions  must  be  asked  in 
worlds  to  come. 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

I  spoke  of  the  sacrifice  involved  in 
discrimination.  Truth  also  involves  sac- 
rifice. One  of  the  promises  made  to  the 
infant  Church  was  that  the  Spirit  of 
God  should  guide  it  into  all  truth.  The 
officers  of  the  Church  who  have  taken 
this  promise  seriously  and  receptively 
have  most  often  been  the  martyrs.  Con- 
ventionality or  worldliness  or  positive 
badness  has  again  and  again  hardened 
the  heart  of  the  Church,  so  that  the 
man  who  has  listened  attentively  to  the 
Spirit  of  Truth  has  received  a  message 
cutting  athwart  all  the  selfishness  and 
complacency  of  the  age.  What  has 
called  itself  orthodoxy  has  attempted 
to  persecute  the  truth  which  is  fresh 
from  the  life  of  God,  and  the  prophet 
who  has  been  the  medium  of  this  truth 
has  been  stoned,  burned,  torn  asunder, 

124 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  THE  WORLD 

crucified.  What  has  been  acquired  in 
academic  shade  is  forced  by  its  con- 
science to  come  out  into  the  light  to 
die.  By  the  very  choice  of  physical 
safety  or  loyalty  to  the  truth,  the  truth 
requires  its  votary  to  announce  whether 
he  lives  for  this  life  or  the  life  to 
come. 

Though  love  repine,  and  reason  chafe, 
There  came  a  voice  without  reply,  — 
**  *Tis  man's  perdition  to  be  safe, 
When  for  the  truth  he  ought  to  die." 

Each  martyr  so  dying  for  the  truth 
has  become  the  centre  of  new  life  for 
the  future  of  the  Church;  and  when 
an  age  is  an  age  of  mart3TS,  when  many 
saints  are  not  only  willing  to  die  for  the 
truth,  but  do  die  for  it,  then  truth  flames 
up  like  a  mighty  torch,  and  men  ever 
after  go  back  to  that  age  to  read  the 

125 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

utterance  of  important  truth.  This  loy- 
alty to  truth  even  unto  death  is  a  wit- 
ness to  immortality  before  which  both 
the  indifferent  and  the  scoffer  veil  their 
eyes. 

Truth  on  its  active  side  is  justice. 
When  Necker  was  Minister  of  Finance 
to  Louis  XVI,  an  influential  lady  of  the 
court  came  to  make  a  request  (which 
was  not  unusual)  that  he  give  her  from 
the  public  treasury  one  thousand  crowns. 
When  he  refused,  the  lady  asked  in 
astonishment,  "  What  can  a  thousand 
crowns  be  to  the  King!"  "Madam," 
answered  Necker,  "  a  thousand  crowns 
are  the  taxes  of  a  whole  village."  To 
see  the  naked  fact  was  Necker's  genius 
for  the  truth;  to  apply  it  in  his  office 
was  his  genius  for  justice.  Democracy 
is  seeing  the  same  truth  in  the  waging 

126 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  THE  WORLD 

of  war.  A  despotism  may  go  to  war 
for  ambition  or  for  a  grudge :  either  it 
does  not  see  the  misery  of  those  who 
must  pay  the  cost,  or  it  viciously  does 
not  care.  A  democracy,  if  it  has  great- 
hearted and  clear-seeing  leaders,  will 
allow  war  only  when  a  supreme  prin- 
ciple is  at  stake,  only  when  the  end  to 
be  fought  for  is  one  which  deserves  the 
extremities  of  sacrifice.  And  when  the 
honest  statesman  has  swept  his  eye 
over  the  people  whose  cause  he  pleads, 
he  knows  by  his  very  discernment  of 
the  truth,  that  this  world  is  not  long 
enough  to  give  justice  to  those  who 
have  suffered  from  the  errors  of  the 
blind  or  the  unscrupulous.  As  truth 
requires  immortality  for  its  consumma- 
tion, so  also  does  justice,  which  is  truth 
in  action.    For  not  till  men  know  the 

127 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

truth  can  justice  prevail;  and  however 
much  good  men  may  desire  it,  they  can- 
not be  just  till  they  are  wise,  and  they 
cannot  be  wise  till  —  all  the  world  help- 
ing them  —  they  know  the  truth.  And 
that,  once  more,  needs  immortality. 

IV 

To  Discrimination  and  Truth  I  now 
add  the  word  Hope,  By  hope  I  mean 
such  belief  in  humanity  that  one  can 
rationally  expect  it  to  escape  from  its 
sin  and  turmoil.  People  can  be  found 
who  believe  that  it  is  possible  on  this 
side  of  death  for  an  individual  here  or 
there  to  attain  perfection;  but  I  never 
have  met  any  one  who  was  optimist 
enough  to  believe  that  in  this  world  hu- 
manity as  a  whole  could  become  com- 
pletely righteous.  To  ^have  a  hope  that 

128 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  THE  WORLD 

humanity  can  attain  the  will  always  to 
think  and  to  do  such  things  as  are  good 
requires  nothing  less  than  a  confidence 
in  immortality.  Accordingly,  one  who 
believes  in  immortality  for  the  race 
will  show  his  belief  by  a  correspond- 
ing hope;  or,  if  this  seem  unnecessarily 
definite,  we  can  at  least  say  that  no  one 
can  have  this  hope  who  does  not  trust  in 
the  opportunity  which  a  future  life  shall 
give.  "  It  is  not,"  writes  a  shrewd  man, 
"  the  prosperity  of  the  wicked  which  is 
the  staggering  fact,  but  his  sin;  and  the 
real  reason  why  we  should  desire  a  life 
after  death  is  not  so  much  that  we  may 
be  rewarded  for  being  as  good  as  we 
are,  but  that  we  may  have  a  chance  to 
become  better."  Immortality  is  the  only 
answer  to  a  rational  hope  for  the  race. 
This  hope  must  show  itself  in  vari- 

129 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

ous  ways.  The  first  of  these  is  in  a  rec- 
ognition of  the  difficulties.  To  almost 
every  man  it  is  plain  that  there  is  such 
a  thing  as  sin.  Towards  an  Eternal 
Right  or  towards  one  another  men  have 
so  misbehaved  that  the  world  is  filled 
with  the  results  of  their  deeds.  Some 
unhappiness  comes  in  the  natural  course 
of  things,  but  all  through  history  acute 
minds  have  attributed  a  vast  amount  of 
the  misery  of  earth  to  men's  abuse  of 
the  moral  law.  These  disastrous  conse- 
quences have  not  been  visited  always 
or  only  upon  the  offenders,  each  man 
reaping  the  exact  results  of  his  own 
misdoing;  but  they  have  been  visited 
upon  humanity  as  a  whole.  One  has 
sown;  a  neighbour,  a  grandchild,  a  be- 
ing in  another  continent,  or  a  whole 
nation,  has  reaped  the  sowing. 

130 


.RESPONSIBILITY  OF  THE  WORLD 

The  difficulty  is  further  increased 
by  the  well-assured  fact  that  progress 
has  been  made  very  slowly  out  of  the 
wretched  tangle.  Man  has  lived  on  the 
globe  many  thousand  years,  but  through 
times  of  which  we  have  any  record  he 
has  not  been  very  different  from  what 
he  is  to-day.  There  is  no  sound  reason 
why  we  should  think  the  hell-like  spots 
of  London,  Berlin,  or  New  York  a  bit 
better  than  the  corresponding  sections 
of  Athens,  Babylon,  or  Ur  of  the  Chal- 
dees.  And  noble  as  are  the  Christian 
'  saints  of  to-day,  one  cannot  quite  con- 
gratulate one's  self  that  they  are  more 
consistently  heroic  and  good  than  the 
saints  of  the  first  Christian  centuries. 
From  science,  with  its  doctrine  of  evo- 
lution, we  gain  the  courage  to  believe 
that  in  spite  of  appearances  there  has 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

been  moral  and  spiritual  growth  in  these 
less  plastic  millenniums,  just  as  there 
was  physical  growth  in  the  more  fluid 
ages  before.  But  even  science  coldly 
warns  us  that  evolution  has  now  these 
many  centuries  subsided  into  a  snail- 
like advance.  Here,  on  the  threshold, 
we  feel  the  hopelessness  of  completing 
the  renovation  of  humanity  in  a  world 
like  our  own,  however  long  time  may 
last. 

Another  way  in  which  hope  for  the 
race  will  show  itself  is  in  throwing  it- 
self against  these  recognized  difficulties 
and  in  extorting  from  the  present  order 
some  demonstration  of  its  power  to 
grow.  For  we  need  repeatedly  to  re- 
mind ourselves  that  this  world  is  prob- 
ably joined  to  the  next  so  closely  that 
we  shall  awake  in  the  new  environment 

132 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  THE  WORLD 

to  find  ourselves  exactly  what  we  were 
when  we  breathed  our  last  earthly 
breath.  If  humanity  is  to  advance  with 
any  appreciable  momentum  it  must  be- 
gin to  do  so,  and  the  beginning  may  be 
found  to  be  no  easier  in  a  future  world 
than  here.  To  have  hope  for  humanity 
means,  therefore,  that  we  are  not  post- 
poning our  efforts  either  individually  or 
corporately,  but  are  minded  to  turn  our 
hope  into  action  at  once.  It  is  this  in- 
stinct which  forces  the  Christian  physi- 
cian to  keep  his  patient  alive  just  as  long 
as  he  can,  though  he  know  that  a  future 
awaits  this  patient  the  other  side  of  death, 
and  though  every  indication  lead  him  to 
expect  that  the  days  of  life  here  remain- 
ing will  be  painful.  He  may  say  that  it 
is  his  profession  to  keep  life;  but  back 
of  this  mere  professional  instinct  is  the 

^33 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

higher  instinct,  the  instinct  to  give  his 
patient  the  utmost  use  of  the  earthly 
opportunity. 

What  we  see  for  the  individual,  we 
see  in  exactly  the  same  degree  for  the 
race :  we  are  instinctively  sure  that  as 
a  race  we  are  expected  to  make  the 
most  of  this  earthly  life.  Each  stage  is 
expected  to  gather  its  share  of  momen- 
tum which  shall  at  length  carry  human- 
ity rapidly  forward  towards  perfection. 
The  pessimist,  knowing  the  deep-seated 
corruption  of  his  country,  may  cry  out 
that  the  nation  is  not  worth  saving,  and 
refuse  all  effort  to  help  it  to  righteous- 
ness; the  candid  man  with  hope  in  his 
heart,  knowing  precisely  the  same  black 
facts,  will  bend  all  his  power  to  per- 
suade his  countrymen  to  work  with  him 
for  a  prompt  reform.   Though  nothing 

134 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  THE  WORLD 

be  able  to  rescue  the  nation  in  this  dis- 
pensation, it  may  carry  the  ideals  and 
hopes  of  its  founders  and  reformers  into 
the  new  life,  and  what  was  begun  here 
may  proceed  to  its  immortal  fruition. 

Side  by  side  with  this  effort  to  extort 
growth  must  be  patience.  In  his  "  Lib- 
erty of  Prophesying,"  Jeremy  Taylor 
tells  a  legend  of  Abraham.  A  strange 
old  man,  stooping  with  weary  age,  came 
one  night  to  the  door  of  Abraham's 
tent ;  Abraham  received  him  kindly, 
washed  his  feet,  and  bade  him  enter 
and  sup  with  him.  But  when  the  old 
man  confessed  himself  a  worshipper  of 
the  fire  only,  and  refused  to  conform  to 
Abraham's  religious  views,  Abraham, 
zealously  angry,  cast  him  out.  Presently 
the  Lord  spoke  to  Abraham :  "  Where 
is  the  stranger?"  "He  would  not  call 

135 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

upon  Thee,"  answered  Abraham;  "so  I 
thrust  him  away."  "  I,"  said  the  divine 
Voice,  "  have  suffered  him  these  hun- 
dred years;  couldest  not  thou  endure 
him  for  one  night?" 

This  old  tale,  had  it  been  understood, 
might  have  saved  many  a  cruel  act 
done  in  the  name  of  religion  or  patriot- 
ism. We  must  be  eager  to  have  men 
see  the  divine  beauty  as  we  see  it;  but 
we  may  not  hasten  their  coming  to  the 
Light  by  applying  thumb-screws  or  set- 
ting the  rack  in  motion.  A  nation  at 
war  may  believe  that  the  immediate 
hope  of  the  world  lies  with  the  assur- 
ance of  the  victory  of  its  arms;  but  it 
may  not  hasten  the  victory  by  mean 
trickery  or  contemptible  and  illegal 
warfare.  Theodore  Parker,  in  his  haste 
to  reach  the  abolition  of  slavery,  said, 

136 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  THE  WORLD 

"  God  is  not  in  a  hurry,  but  I  am.'^ 
That  short  sentence  summarizes  the 
folly  of  impatience.  The  zealous  re- 
former with  the  divine  hope  in  his  heart 
is  so  confident  of  the  outcome  that  he 
can  afford  to  work  both  without  haste 
and  without  rest.  He  shall  do  his  full 
share  to  start  the  humanity  with  which 
he  has  contact  towards  its  goal,  but 
even  if  the  progress  is  slow,  he  will 
still  hope.  The  main  issue  is  that  a  vital 
beginning  shall  be  made.  A  depend- 
ence on  immortality  can  then  assure 
the  final  victory. 

In  this  context  we  may  remind  our- 
selves of  two  historic  instances  which 
are  in  a  measure  parts  of  the  same 
event.  One  is  the  Messianic  Hope  of 
Israel.  That  hope  was  never  realized 
in  a  form  which  those  who  dreamed  it 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

through  the  years  before  Christ  would 
have  recognized.  The  Christian  world 
believes  that  the  hope  was  fulfilled  in  a 
way  which  transcended  the  most  ven- 
turesome of  prophets.  Instead  of  an 
earthly  kingdom  was  a  spiritual ;  in- 
stead of  a  conqueror  of  nations  was  a 
conqueror  of  the  human  heart;  instead 
of  a  terrible  King  was  a  loving  and 
sympathetic  Friend.  Unlike  as  the  hope 
seemed,  outwardly,  to  its  answer  in 
history,  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  na- 
tion inspired  by  the  hope  was  made 
ready  to  receive  that  better  Gift,  just 
because  it  had  hoped  with  all  its  heart 
and  mind  and  soul. 

We,  too,  must  in  our  time  have  our 
Messianic  Hope.  We  are  hoping  for  a 
perfected  humanity  transfigured  into  the 
image  of  Christ.  We  announce  our  pro- 

138 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  THE  WORLD, 

grammes  and  panaceas.  We  deftly  draw 
pictures  of  what  ought  to  be.  We  dare 
to  begin  our  part  in  making  the  world 
like  our  dreams,  leaving  the  end  rev- 
erently and  trustingly  to  God  and  im- 
mortality. When  the  new  heaven  and 
the  new  earth  are  come,  I  am  quite 
sure  that  we  shall  find  our  Messianic 
Hope  far  short  of  the  bold  and  beauti- 
ful solution  which  God  shall  give  to  us, 
and  far  different  from  it.  But  I  am  also 
sure  of  this:  we  shall  not  be  mocked 
because  of  our  effort  to  see  the  distant 
scene.  As^the  Messianic  Hope  had 
its  share  towards  making  possible  the 
Greatness  of  two  thousand  years  ago, 
so  our  Messianic  Hope  will  have  its 
part  in  bringing  into  eternity  the  Great- 
ness which  God  longs  to  give  to  hu- 
manity, 

139 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

The  other  historic  instance  closely 
related  to  the  Messianic  Hope  is  the 
way  Christ,  having  come,  used  hope  in 
His  mission  to  men.  We  cannot  explain 
Him,  but  we  know  that  His  influence 
upon  frail  and  sinning  humanity  was 
His  most  wonderful  miracle,  a  miracle 
which  is  as  unique  in  history  as  it  is 
unquestioned.  He  transformed  individ- 
ual men,  and  later,  invisible,  He  trans- 
formed cities  and  nations.  How  did  He 
do  it?  How  did  Simon,  untrustworthy, 
volatile,  impertinent,  become  the  pa- 
tient and  reliable  leader,  St.  Peter  ?  We 
may  not  know  fully;  but  one  element  in 
the  change  was  Christ's  hope  for  this 
blundering  fisherman.  Christ  believed 
in  the  possibility  of  Simon's  stability  till 
Simon  believed  in  himself,  and  really 
became  a  Rock.  The  man  who  had  de- 

140 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  THE  WORLD 

nied  his  Master  became  as  the  shadow 
of  a  great  rock  in  a  weary  land,  the 
refuge  of  men  blinded  by  the  tempest. 
This  one  instance  must  suffice  to  sug- 
gest to  us  how  we  may  help  to  bring 
the  world  towards  the  best  we  can 
dream  for  it:  we  must  have  hope  for 
the  outcast  and  the  despised;  we  must 
have  hope  for  the  crooked  politician 
and  the  evasive  ecclesiastic;  we  must 
have  hope  for  the  commercialized  city, 
daft  over  its  material  bigness  and  blind 
to  its  vulgarity  and  cheapness ;  we  must 
have  hope  for  the  nation  sliding  calmly 
into  easy  compromise,  an  opportunist 
in  days  of  world -warfare,  confusing 
duty  with  profit ;  even  for  the  wide 
world,  enmeshed  in  anger  and  strife, 
we  must  have  hope:  and,  if  our  hope 
is  the  real  thing,  it  will  flash  from  our 

141 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

eyes  to  kindle  hope  in  others,  till  from 
life  to  life  it  passes  with  pentecostal 
power  to  give  hope  to  those  for  whom 
we  hope,  till  Christ  in  us  gives  them 
the  beginning  of  a  new  life,  which  hav- 
ing begun  shall  not  end,  but  shall  go 
on  to  its  fulfilment  from  this  life  into 
the  next,  and  crowned  at  length  by  the 
complete  opportunity  of  immortality. 

If  we  really  believe  in  immortality 
for  humanity,  we  shall  be  possessed  by 
an  undaunted  hope  for  it.  And  that 
hope  shall  begin  to  bear  fruit  now. 

V 

Discrimination,  Truth,  Hope  are  the 
words  I  have  named  to  express  our  be- 
lief in  immortality  when  we  think  of 
humanity  in  its  larger  relationships:  I 
add  only  one  other  word,  Love. 

142 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  THE  WORLD 

I  have  in  another  connection  referred 
to  the  Larger  Hope,  the  hope  that  God 
will  bring  every  individual  personality 
into  his  happiness.  I  have  already  shown 
that  such  a  belief  is  a  limitation  of  human 
liberty:  the  self-willed,  who  have  hith- 
erto, by  their  own  choice,  remained  out- 
side God's  friendship,  will  in  some  man- 
ner be  obliged  to  change  their  natures. 
There  are  undoubted  difficulties  in  the 
hypothesis  of  the  Larger  Hope.  It  is 
sometimes  held  airily  by  expansive  na- 
tures as  if  there  were  nothing  easier 
than  to  persuade  every  one  in  the  world 
to  be  gentle  and  loving  and  good, — 
that  is,  suitable  for  the  kingdom  of 
heaven.  But  difficult  as  the  hope  may 
be,  it  is  not  more  difficult  than  the 
Larger  Despair;  and,  whatever  the  dif- 
ficulties of  logic,  it  is  certain  that  every 

M3 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

loving  man  ought  to  long  that  the  Larger 
Hope  should  prove  to  be  true. 

All  I  wish  to  insist  upon  just  here  is 
that  the  Larger  Hope  imposes  upon  one 
who  believes  in  it,  or  thinks  that  he  be- 
lieves in  it,  definite  responsibilities.  One 
of  these  is  that  the  man  who  is  so  gener- 
ous as  to  hope  that  he  will  find  all  men 
in  the  kingdom  of  heaven  must  begin 
to  live  on  intimate  terms  with  all  sorts 
of  people  now.  He  cannot  with  any 
self-respect  ask  God  to  love  what  he 
does  not  at  least  try  to  love. 

I  state  the  proposition  thus  boldly  be- 
cause the  Larger  Hope  is  sometimes 
cast  up  to  Heaven  as  a  challenge:  God 
having  made  all  men,  is  the  frequent 
plea,  and  having  put  them  into  a  rather 
shabby  environment,  must  bring  them 
all  out  to  an  equal  plane  of  comrade- 

144 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  THE  WORLD 

ship  and  bliss  at  the  end.  Very  well, — 
what  is  the  pleader  willing  to  do  now 
to  share  his  company  and  blessings  with 
the  soiled,  the  crusty,  the  crude,  the 
proud,  the  bigoted,  the  Becky  Sharps, 
the  Pecksniffs,  the  Bill  Sykeses,  and  all 
the  rest?  How  far  is  he  willing  to  allow 
himself  to  be  the  means  through  which 
God  shall  begin  now  to  admit  all  men 
into  a  gracious  and  refined  Christian 
fellowship  ?  This  does  not  mean  walk- 
ing by  the  open  doors  of  hospital  wards 
and  seeing  the  motley  company  cared 
for  when  ill;  it  does  not  mean  meeting 
them  for  a  few  minutes  in  some  court- 
room to  which  he  goes  from  curiosity; 
it  does  not  mean  looking  them  over  in 
some  great  ocean  steamer, — to  the  fin- 
ical person  it  does  not  make  much  dif- 
ference whether  the  glance  be  down  into 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

the  steerage  or  back  into  the  worldly 
and  complacent  throng  who  occupy  first 
cabins.  No!  it  means  loving  these  dif- 
ferent people  of  varied  temperaments 
and  attainments;  it  means  a  longing  to 
sit  down  to  talk  with  them  by  the  hour, 
the  day,  the  week,  just  as  one  would 
enjoy  a  long  visit  with  some  old  friend. 
For  there  are  to  be  no  distinctions:  all 
are  to  fare  alike.  The  pleader's  sense 
of  justice  demands  itl 

It  sounds  impossible.  For  a  good 
many  people  it  is  impossible  at  present. 
But  it  is  not  impossible  for  some  peo- 
ple even  now;  and  it  might  become 
possible  for  every  person,  —  if  he  had 
enough  love  in  him.  There  are  some 
wonderfully  attractive  men  and  women 
who  seem  at  home  anywhere.  They  go 
in  and  out  of  all  sorts  of  homes.    The 

146 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  THE  WORLD 

crabbed  find  that  they  can  smile  when 
such  visitors  come  through  their  doors. 
The  shiftless  and  untidy  rearrange  the 
furniture  so  that  the  room  is  not  so  bad 
as  it  seemed  before  the  guest  came. 
The  cantankerous  and  the  bitter  cease 
reviling  for  half  an  hour,  and  find  some 
pleasant  word  to  say  of  a  neighbour. 
The  vile  forget  their  villainy,  and  of- 
fer to  help  a  good  cause.  These  men 
and  women  who  are  able  to  be  simple 
and  genuine  friends  with  all  kinds 
of  people  are  the  only  real  reasons 
which  the  world  has  for  believing  in 
the  Larger  Hope:  they  have  enough 
love  from  on  high  to  carry  heaven 
into  homes  both  nasty  and  disagree- 
able, whether  rich  or  poor,  and  they 
can  and  do  receive  the  only  ade- 
quate response,  love  for  love.    By  their 

147 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

love   they   believe   in  immortality  for 
humanity. 

When  all  is  said,  how  can  any  loving 
heart  endure  to  think  of  an  immortality 
where  he  shall  not  share  the  best  God 
gives  him  with  all  kinds  of  people?  For 
it  is  the  essence  of  love  that  it  is  un- 
selfish, that  it  thinks  of  all  the  people 
who  are  forlorn  and  unhappy  and  left 
out.  So  if  such  a  person  aglow  with 
love  should  come  to  the  immortal  life 
with  all  its  new  opportunities  for  joy, 
and  should  find  that  some  one  he  had 
known  on  earth  was  not  within  the  cir- 
cle of  the  opportunity,  —  an  old  repro- 
bate perhaps  for  whom  he  only  had 
affection,  a  selfish,  very  prosperous,  and 
notable  woman  to  whom  he  only  had 
been  kind,  or  a  scapegrace  of  a  boy 
cast  out  by  his  family  in  whom  he  only 

148 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  THE  WORLD 

had  believed, —  if  this  person  were  not 
there,  I  say,  how  long  would  the  saint, 
overflowing  with  God's  forgiving  love, 
stay  quietly  enjoying  his  peace?  Not 
one  moment  I  am  perfectly  sure,  even 
as  Andrew  when  he  first  saw  the  king- 
dom of  heaven  in  the  face  of  Jesus 
Christ,  stayed  not  an  instant,  but  ran 
to  fetch  the  wayward  Simon,  that  they 
might  together  listen  to  the  Master's 
talk. 

Heaven  is  not  won,  I  think,  by  a 
man's  own  goodness.  If  we  may  im- 
agine that  only  one  man  were  good 
enough  to  win  heaven,  lack  of  wide  fel- 
lowship would  make  heaven  doleful  for 
that  good  man,  because  goodness  is, 
first  of  all,  love.  The  good  man  wants 
the  unselfish  joy  of  knowing  that  others 
are  as  happy  as  he ;  so  he  must  bring 

149 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

all  he  can  with  him.  The  Great  Sup- 
per must  be  furnished  with  guests,  else 
there  is  no  tasting  the  feast.  So  out  into 
the  by-ways  and  hedges  must  go  the 
true  servant  of  the  Lord  of  the  Supper, 
to  find  them  which  were  not  bidden, 
that  they  come  after  all  and  sit  down 
with  the  Most  Loving.  Then  the  joy  is 
complete. 

In  an  unconventional  form  this  is 
what  we  mean  by  the  missionary  spirit. 
Strange  criticisms  are  made  by  the  man 
outside  the  Church,  and  often  by  the 
man  in  it,  of  the  futility  of  sending 
teachers  and  doctors  and  preachers  to 
non-Christian  lands.  Why  should  we 
not  confine  our  benevolent  efforts  to  our 
own  poor  or  degraded?  Why  should 
we  not  let  these  foreigners  alone  to 
work  out  their  own  problems  in  their 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  THE  WORLD 

own  way?  The  only  answer  is  that  we 
believe  that  we  have  a  unique  privilege 
and  we  want  to  share  it  now.  We  be- 
lieve in  the  brotherhood  of  man;  and 
we  want  to  share  what  is  to  us  most 
precious  with  Chinamen  and  Indians 
and  Africans  and  every  other  race  of 
men.  The  Larger  Hope  hovers  over 
our  love,  and  we  wish  to  show  the  real- 
ity of  our  faith  in  the  longing  that  this 
hope  be  true  by  inviting  to  our  fellow- 
ship those  who  now  seem  to  have  less 
than  we  have.  Real  love  never  stays  at 
home,  but,  by  the  very  richness  of  its 
devotion  to  family  and  parish  and  city 
and  country,  presses  out  into  the  edges 
of  humanity  and  claims  humanity  as  its 
own. 

When  John  Bright's  wife  lay  dead, 
his  friend  Cobden  came  to  console  him, 

151 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

And  these  are  the  words  with  which 
Cobden  appealed  to  Bright's  love  for  his 
wife:  "There  are  thousands  of  houses 
in  England  at  this  moment  where 
wives,  mothers,  and  children  are  dying 
of  hunger.  Now,  when  the  first  parox- 
ysm of  your  grief  is  past,  I  would  ad- 
vise you  to  come  with  me,  and  we  will 
never  rest  till  the  Corn  Laws  are  re- 
pealed. John  Bright  accepted  the  chal- 
lenge, and  won  the  gratitude  of  the 
poor  of  England.  The  love  learned  at 
his  own  fireside  went  out  to  the  op- 
pressed; and  the  poor  loved  him.  Three 
old  men  came  into  Manchester  one  day 
to  hear  Bright  speak  once  more.  When 
they  saw  him  come  to  the  platform  they 
all  three  broke  down  and  burst  into 
tears.  Their  love  for  him  was  so  great 
that  they  could  not  contain  it.  That  is 

152 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  THE  WORLD 

the  sort  of  experience  which  makes 
one  ready  for  immortality.  The  Larger 
Hope  seems  possible. 

It  will  be  joy  to  meet  all  the  great 
and  noble  of  all  ages  who  by  their  own 
strength  have  won  the  crown  of  life; 
but  it  will  be  greater  joy  to  meet  in  the 
life  to  come  the  people  of  all  sorts  and 
conditions  who  by  our  love  and  friend- 
ship have  come  there.  And  the  joy 
greater  still  will  be  to  take  their  hands 
and  to  go  running  swiftly  with  them 
out  into  the  farther  rims  of  twilight  and 
darkness,  seeking  some  who  have  been 
forgotten,  or  who  never  understood  that 
they  were  really  wanted.  And  thus  the 
love  learned  on  earth  will  be  the  bless- 
ing of  immortality.  In  the  light  of  Him 
who  is  the  Source  of  Love,  it  will  be 
the  joy  of  heaven.  This  is  the  immor- 

153 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY      , 

tality  begun  on  earth  which  Matthew 
Arnold  found  in  his  great  father  and  in 
others  of  a  similar  unselfishness:  — 

Servants  of  God !  —  or  sons 
Shall  I  not  call  you  ?  because 
Not  as  servants  ye  knew 
Your  Father's  innermost  mind, 
His,  who  unwillingly  sees 
One  of  his  little  ones  lost  — 
Yours  is  the  praise,  if  mankind 
Hath  not  as  yet  in  its  march 
Fainted,  and  fallen,  and  died  I 

Ye,  like  angels,  appear, 

Radiant  with  ardour  divine. 

Beacons  of  hope,  ye  appear ! 

Languor  is  not  in  your  heart, 

Weakness  is  not  in  your  word, 

Weariness  not  on  your  brow. 

Ye  alight  in  our  van  I  at  your  voice. 

Panic,  despair,  flee  away. 

Ye  move  through  the  ranks,  recall 

The  stragglers,  refresh  the  outworn. 

Praise,  re- inspire  the  brave. 

154 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  THE  WORLD 

Order,  courage,  return; 
Eyes  rekindling,  and  prayers, 
Follow  your  steps  as  ye  go. 
Ye  fill  up  the  gaps  in  our  files, 
Strengthen  the  wavering  line, 
Stablish,  continue  our  march. 
On,  to  the  bound  of  the  waste. 
On,  to  the  City  of  God. 


Ill 


THE   RESPONSIBILITY   OF   GOD   FOR 
IMMORTALITY 

I 

In  Shakespeare's  King  Henry  V] 
Mistress  Quickly  describes  the  death 
of  Falstaff,  who  had  died  in  her  inn. 
When  she  knew  that  the  end  was  near, 
she  tried  to  reassure  him  with  the 
thought  that  he  was  not  dying.  "  ^  How 
now,  Sir  John ! '  quoth  I :  '  What,  man ! 
be  o'  good  cheer.'  So  he  cried  out, 
^  God,  God,  God ! '  three  or  four  times. 
Now  I,  to  comfort  him,  bid  him  he 
should  not  think  of  God;  I  hoped  there 
was  no  need  to  trouble  himself  with  any 
such  thoughts  yet."  Mistress  Quickly  is 
representative  of  a  large  number  of  peo- 

156 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  GOD 

pie  who  believe  that  to  think  of  God  is 
wholly  unpractical.  But  the  truth  is 
that,  since  we  live  in  a  world  made 
and  controlled  by  Him,  to  think  of 
God  is  at  all  times  the  most  practical 
occupation  in  which  we  can  engage.  We 
cannot  therefore  consider  our  responsi- 
bility to  immortality  without  weighing 
all  the  evidence  that  we  can  discover 
of  the  responsibility  which  God  assumes 
towards  it. 

It  is  sometimes  said  that  every  man 
creates  his  own  God.  The  element  of 
truth  in  this  flippant  remark  is  that  every 
man  has  his  own  conception  of  the  na- 
ture and  character  of  God.  The  exist- 
ence and  stability  of  the  Divine  Being 
is  no  more  put  in  jeopardy  by  the  com- 
plex views  about  Him  than  is  the  ex- 
istence of  any  human  character  who  is 

IS7 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

estimated  in  various  ways  by  those 
who  know  him  with  varying  degrees  of 
intimacy.  Further,  just  as  it  makes  a 
difference  in  the  acts  of  persons  when 
they  differently  regard  a  fellow  man,  — 
as,  for  instance,  the  three  men  in  the 
parable  who  from  their  lord  received  re- 
spectively five  talents,  two  talents,  and 
one  talent,  —  so  it  makes  a  difference 
in  our  acts  when  we  differently  regard 
the  Lord  God.  In  the  parable  the  man 
with  one  talent  said  that  he  knew  his 
master  to  be  a  hard  man,  reaping  where 
he  had  not  sown,  therefore  his  fear 
made  him  hide  the  money,  so  that  it 
was  useless.  In  exactly  the  same  way 
men's  idea  of  God  may  be  such  that 
they  will  waste  their  lives  from  a  sort 
of  spite  against  what  they  think  God's 
injustice  or  neglect. 

158 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  GOD 

We  see  this  principle  in  the  attitude 
of  nations  towards  the  Divine  Idea. 
Israel,  Greece,  Rome  were  what  they 
were  largely  because  of  the  concep- 
tions which  they  variously  had  of  God. 
And  in  nothing  has  national  expression 
been  more  significant  than  in  its  idea 
of  a  future  life  which  has  directly  risen 
out  of  the  nation's  idea  of  God.  Old 
Testament  scholars  have  amply  proved 
that  by  a  divine  education  the  ancient 
Hebrews  passed  from  a  monolatrous 
to  a  monotheistic  conception  of  God. 
Moreover,  the  righteous  character  of 
God  was  progressively  revealed  to  the 
nation,  and  the  great  prophets,  from 
800  B.  c.  onward,  insisted  that,  to  serve 
the  righteous  God,  the  people  must 
make  the  spiritual  effort  to  be  right- 
eous also.  At    the   beginning    of   the 

IS9 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

religious  growth  of  the  nation,  so  far  as 
scholars  can  trace  it,  ideas  about  the 
future  life  seem  to  have  been  coloured 
largely  by  the  influence  of  the  religious 
ideas  of  neighbouring  nations;  but  when 
the  Hebrews  acquired  a  doctrine  of  the 
future  life  distinctly  their  own,  it  was 
a  doctrine  exactly  conforming  to  their 
idea  of  God.  This  future  life  required 
righteousness,  and  its  main  joy  was 
that  it  was  life  in  a  divine  community. 
The  gods  of  the  Greeks,  on  the  other 
hand,  were  both  immoral  and  selfish: 
so  it  was  not  strange  that  the  Greeks 
thought  it  proper  that  the  base  Mene- 
laus  should  be  translated  to  the  Isles 
of  the  Blessed;  and  even  Plato,  with 
his  exalted  moral  conception  of  indi- 
vidual immortality,  thought  it  right  that 
the  immortal   individual  should  bliss- 

i6o 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  GOD 

fully  ignore  the  fate  of  the  community. 
Of  Romans  there  was  none  finer  than 
Marcus  Aurelius.  As  a  Stoic  he  had  his 
theology  partly  from  Greece,  but  his 
sense  of  order,  law,  and  justice  made 
his  thought  characteristically  Roman. 
Marcus  Aurelius  was  quite  sure  that 
the  gods  exist,  and,  though  much  per- 
plexed by  what  he  thought  manifesta- 
tions of  their  power,  he  was  also  sure 
that  they  are  just.  He  was  not  clear 
how  the  future  might  be:  he  inclined 
to  think  our  bodies  would  go  to  earth 
and  our  souls  to  the  divinity  who  gave 
them;  but  he  was  satisfied  that  what- 
ever might  be  in  store  for  us  after 
death  was  just.  In  the  light  of  this  be- 
lief Marcus  Aurelius  lived  his  upright 
life;  his  idea  of  God  governed  both 
thoughts  and  acts. 

i6i 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

And  so  it  has  been  of  all  times  and 
peoples.  The  Buddhist,  with  his  idea  of 
God  as  Peace,  tried  to  be  lost  in  medi- 
tation in  this  world,  and  dreamed  of 
Nirvana  at  the  last.  The  Mahomedan 
saw  God  in  self-indulgent  power,  and 
accordingly  lived  to  the  flesh,  and  looked 
forward  to  a  heaven  of  carnal  delights. 
The  barbarians  of  Northern  Europe 
thought  of  God  as  a  great  warrior,  and 
therefore  lived  to  fight,  and  thought  to 
be  gathered  in  the  end  to  the  armed 
camp  of  heaven.  Even  to  our  North 
American  Indians  both  heaven  and 
earth  were  hunting-grounds,  because 
the  Great  Spirit  was  the  Maker  of  moun- 
tains and  streams,  where  He  wished 
His  children  to  hunt  and  fish.  Every- 
where one  looks,  in  history  or  in  life, 
the  idea  of  immortality  is  seen  to  de- 

162 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  GOD 

pend  upon  the  idea  men  may  have  of 
the  Invisible  God.  We  may  therefore 
examine  with  earnest  care  what  re- 
sponsibility God,  as  we  know  Him,  takes 
towards  our  immortality,  always  re- 
membering how  our  own  responsibility 
is  reflected  in  it, 

n 

The  first  fact  which  confronts  us  is  that 
God  has  so  made  the  world  that  he  does 
not  permit  us  who  are  in  this  life  to 
know  anything  of  the  life  which  is  to 
be.  How  shall  we  imagine  that  for  this 
fact  (of  which  in  our  grief  we  often 
bitterly  complain)  God  takes  the  re- 
sponsibility? 

I  see  two  answers.  The  first  of  these 
is  that,  being  the  Supreme  Master  of 
life,  God  means  us  to  make  the  most  of 

163 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

this  period  of  our  schooling.  A  boy  may 
be  indolent  and  sluggish  in  his  lessons 
because  he  is  thinking  too  vividly  of 
the  business  career  to  which  he  aspires. 
He  may,  at  every  opportunity,  be  run- 
ning about  through  offices  and  shops, 
watching  the  leaders  or  the  subordinates 
in  business,  and  dreaming  all  the  time 
how  it  will  seem  when  he  is  in  these 
men's  places;  meanwhile  he  is  scorning 
to  study  Latin  and  French  and  Algebra, 
because  they  belong  to  his  petty  and 
dreary  world  of  school,  and  have  noth- 
ing to  do  with  what  he  calls  real  life. 
Perhaps  his  parents  do  not  seriously  up- 
braid him,  because  they  believe  that  this 
enthusiasm  for  his  career  will  more  than 
offset  his  diligence  with  books.  But  what 
is  the  actual  result,  as  many  an  instance 
shows?  This  boy  who  tries  to  enter  the 

164 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  GOD 

second  period  of  his  life  while  still  plod- 
ding through  the  first  period,  again  and 
again  reaches  the  second  period,  not 
only  ill-equipped  but  sated  with  his 
dreams  before  he  has  put  his  hand  to 
the  work  which  ought  to  accomplish 
his  dreams.  And  his  companion,  who 
apparently  is  so  absorbed  in  the  work 
and  play  of  school-days  that  he  does 
not  so  much  as  think  what  is  to  come, 
is  again  and  again  his  distant  superior 
in  the  hard  battle  of  mature  life  when 
it  is  reached. 

It  is  quite  the  same  with  a  young  per- 
son who  is  discovered  to  have  a  talent 
or  even  a  genius  for  music.  Bewitched 
with  the  thrilling  experience  of  aston- 
ishing his  elders  by  his  improvisations, 
he  smiles  patronizingly  on  all  his  teach- 
ers who  plead  with  him  to  do  his  dull 

165 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

exercises  and  study  his  dull  books,  and 
fancies  himself  already  to  be  the  peer 
of  the  great  master  whose  performance 
he  has  heard.  Of  course,  if  this  young 
*bit  of  vanity  is  allowed  to  persist  in  his 
stubborn  course,  he  will  reach  the  time 
when  he  ought  to  be  a  marvellous  mu- 
sician, only  a  failure,  —  one  more  of 
those  people  who  had  it  in  them  to  be 
geniuses,  and  missed  their  opportu- 
nity by  skipping  their  preparation  — a 
defect  which  genius  never  forgives. 

Now  is  it  not  reasonable  to  believe 
that  the  world  of  the  immortal  life  dove- 
tails into  this  earthly  experience,  in 
some  such  fashion  as  the  mature  life  of 
man  dovetails  into  the  period  of  his 
preparation?  May  not  this  earthly  life 
make  ready  more  adequately  for  the 
heavenly  life  because  that  heavenly  life 

1 66 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  GOD 

cannot  be  definitely  pictured?  May  its 
reality  not  be  thought  to  be  so  surpass- 
ingly beautiful  that  if  we  did  know 
about  it,  even  the  most  conscientious 
of  us  would  be  listlessly  dreaming  of  it, 
while  the  humdrum  work  beneath  our 
hands  was  either  slighted  or  wholly 
ignored?  Something  like  this  has  hap- 
pened in  periods  of  history  when  the 
saints  have  dwelt  in  detail  upon  what 
they  believed  the  glories  of  heaven. 
Too  much  thought  about  the  golden 
streets  of  the  new  Jerusalem  has  al- 
lowed the  streets  of  many  a  mediaeval 
town  to  be  soiled  and  foul.  A  too  intent 
gaze  upon  the  serried  ranks  of  white- 
robed  heavenly  saints  has  blinded  cer- 
tain ascetic  heroes  to  those  who  ought 
to  have  been  made  saints  on  earth,  and 
whose  robes  are  anything   but  white. 

167 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

There  were  Puritan  saints  who  had  no 
doubt  about  the  bliss  of  heaven,  but 
they  succeeded  in  making  this  world  a 
kind  of  dungeon  for  their  families  lest 
they  think  too  highly  of  it:  and  our 
thought  of  heaven  is  not  to-day  more 
cheerful  because  we  think  of  meeting 
there  these  same  Puritan  saints  who 
despised  this  world  and  its  normal  joys. 
When  all  is  told,  we  are  quite  sure  that 
the  most  congenial  saints  in  heaven  will 
be  those  unselfish  and  radiant  spirits 
who  bravely  met  what  they  found  in 
this  life,  rejoiced  in  God's  sunshine, 
made  little  of  the  rain,  and  in  both 
bright  weather  and  dark  forgot  their 
own  present  and  future  in  bringing  com- 
fort and  help  to  the  burdened  and  op- 
pressed. They  will  have  made  them- 
selves more  fit  for  heaven,  and   they 

1 68 


RESPONSIBILITY    OF    GOD 

will  have  made  heaven  more  glad,  be- 
cause while  on  earth  they  did  not  try 
to  probe  secrets  of  the  future  which 
God  obviously  meant  to  remain  secrets, 
and  they  lived  their  hard  and  beautiful 
lives   on   earth   as  if   it  were   heaven 

itself.  In  such  lives  I  see  the  first 
full  and  eloquent  reason  why  I  think 

God  is  willing  to  be  responsible,  even 
though  we  murmur,  for  our  not  know- 
ing any  detail  of  the  manner  of  our 
future  life. 

The  second  reason  for  God's  with- 
holding from  us  news  of  the  country 
beyond  death  seems  to  me  quite  as 
clear:  I  cannot  believe  that  our  present 
consciousness  could  by  any  means  com- 
prehend any  descriptions  which  might 
be  given  us.  There  is  much,  we  are 
well  aware,  in  this  present  visible  uni- 

169 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

verse  which  is  invisible  to  our  eyes: 
the  telescope  and  the  microscope  reveal 
so  much  beyond  what  we  can  see  with 
the  naked  eye  that  we  know  that  there 
are  whole  universes  of  mystery  beyond 
the  realms  which  the  telescope  opens 
in  greatness  and  which  the  microscope 
opens  in  littleness.  Occasionally  a  sen- 
sitive photographic  plate  catches  the 
view  of  an  asteroid  millions  of  miles 
away  which,  through  even  the  strongest 
telescope,  the  eye  cannot  see;  and  at  the 
other  extreme,  scientists  are  telling  us, 
an  electron  is  so  small  that  an  electron 
is  to  an  atom  what  a  pin-head  is  to  the 
dome  of  St.  Paul's,  London.  It  is  the 
same  way  with  sounds.  We  are  grow- 
ing extremely  modest  when  we  look 
or  listen:  the  world  we  live  in  now  is 
quite  beyond  our  capacity  to  realize. 

170 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  GOD 

Why  should  we  expect  to  be  told  of 
another? 

I  have  more  than  once  referred  to  a 
conviction  of  this  generation  that  the 
world  to  come  meets  this  in  a  close  and 
intimate  way,  so  that  perhaps  the  day 
before  death  and  the  day  after  death 
may  make  the  day  between  seem  an 
almost  imperceptible  transition.  This 
might  be  thought  to  militate  against 
the  conviction  which  I  hold  just  as 
strongly ;  namely,  that  we  could  not 
understand  if  we  were  told  the  news  of 
that  new  life.  For  the  fact  is  that  the 
passing  from  one  to  the  other  is  a  tran- 
sition, and  the  new  life  instantly  is  dif- 
ferent from  the  old,  however  closely  it 
may  join  itself  to  the  old.  We  can  judge 
this  most  wisely  by  the  transitions  in 
our  life  here.  The  transition  from  child- 

171 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

hood  to  maturity  is  a  dim  period,  but 
the  child  and  the  man  live  to  a  large  ex- 
tent in  different  worlds.  The  man  has 
more  or  less  vague  remembrances  of 
the  world  of  his  childhood,  but  unless 
his  sympathy  is  uncommonly  keen  he 
has  forgotten  more  than  he  remembers. 
When  he  became  a  man  he  put  away 
childish  things;  he  entered  a  door  into 
a  new  sphere,  and  the  door  has  all  but 
closed  behind  him.  The  child,  on  the 
contrary,  though  he  may  little  think  it, 
is  facing  the  future  as  if  it  were  an  un- 
known continent.  As  he  sees  his  elders 
pass  through  certain  experiences  which 
now  make  them  laugh  and  sing,  and 
again  make  them  sigh  and  weep,  he 
too  may  laugh  or  weep  with  his  child- 
ish sympathy;  but  when  he  asks  why 
his  elders  rejoice  or  mourn,  he  can  get 

172  ' 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  GOD 

no  satisfactory  answer.  He  may  be  told 
that  his  father  is  glad  because  a  reform 
mayor  has  been  elected  in  a  certain 
great  city,  and  there  is  hope  that  the 
whole  country  will  feel  the  inspiration 
of  this  moral  victory;  moreover  news 
has  just  come  that  the  Turks  have  been 
driven  out  of  Constantinople,  and  the 
Greek  liturgy  has  again  been  said  in 
St.  Sophia.  This  is  all  clear  and  defi- 
nite language:  the  child's  eyes  grow 
big  with  wonder  as  he  listens;  but  for 
the  life  of  him  he  cannot  see  why  any 
one  should  find  any  cause  for  excite- 
ment when  such  unintelligible  things 
have  happened.  If  they  had  only  told 
him  that  his  lost  dog  had  been  found, 
or  that  he  was  to  be  taken  to  visit  his 
grandfather,  he  would  have  understood. 
Then  there    is   the    still    harder   tale: 

173 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

why  do  grown  men  and  women  weep? 
When  he  sees  the  tears  filling  the  eyes 
of  one  he  loves,  he  asks  why.  A  letter 
falls  from  the  dear  hand,  and  he  is  told 
tenderly  and  caressingly  that  a  relative 
whom  he  has  never  seen  has  just  died: 
"What  is  death?  "  he  asks.  "Is  the  place 
where  dead  people  go  beautiful  ?  Then 
why,  oh  why,"  he  cries,  "  do  you  weep  ?  " 
He  throws  himself  into  his  mother's  arms 
and  sobs  with  her;  but  he  does  not  know 
why.  Perhaps  his  philosophy  of  death 
is  better  than  hers,  but  it  is  wholly  dif- 
ferent. No  words  can  make  him  under- 
stand why  in  their  deepest  moods  his 
elders  do  what  they  do,  and  say  what 
they  say.  They  have  passed  a  mysteri- 
ous boundary  in  life  which  is  as  the 
boundary  between  two  worlds.  May  it 
not  be  that   it  is  in  this  way  that  at 

174 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  GOD 

death  those  we  love  pass  a  filmy  line 
which  admits  them  to  a  quite  new  ex- 
perience; and  may  it  not  be  that  God 
fails  to  explain  to  his  earthly  children, 
not  because  He  is  less  loving  than 
earthly  fathers,  but  because  He  is  in- 
finitely wiser?  —  for  we  with  our  con- 
sciousness fitted  for  this  stage  of  life 
cannot  understand  the  language  which 
alone  describes  the  stage  ahead  of  us  ? 
To  a  slighter  degree  we  see  the  same 
principle  in  different  ages  in  history, 
even  if  they  touch  one  another.  The 
very  old  man  who  has  been  active  in 
the  days  of  his  strength  laments  that  he 
does  not  comprehend  the  new  sights 
and  sounds.  He  does  not  see  how  the 
new  ways  of  doing  business  can  be  hon- 
ourable; he  does  not  understand  the  new 
books;  the  people  who  proclaim  them- 

175 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

selves  orthodox  in  the  Church  have  not 
his  orthodoxy;  the  radical  reformers  of 
society  and  government  seem  to  him 
either  demented  or  possessed  with  dev- 
ils. He  says  to  himself  that  he  is  hope- 
lessly conservative,  and  that  it  is  prob- 
ably just  as  well  that  he  will  not  stay  much 
longer  in  this  world,  since  it  is  beyond 
both  his  sympathy  and  his  understanding. 
Some  enthusiastic  young  friend  tries  to 
make  him  see  that  history  is  repeating 
itself,  that  he  himself  in  the  vigour  of 
youth  was  radical,  and  being  sure  of 
the  integrity  of  his  dreams  clung  to 
them  till  he  helped  the  world  by  their 
fulfilment;  and  now,  says  the  apologist 
for  his  time,  the  young  radicals  of  this 
day  are  trying  to  do  the  same  task  for 
the  coming  age:  the  world  is  safe  after 
all.  But  the  old  man  shakes  his  head: 

176 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  GOD 

he  does  not  believe  it;  in  any  case  he 
cannot  expect  ever  to  understand  it. 
There  have  been  old  men  who  have 
never  ceased  to  be  radicals,  who  seemed 
always  to  be  living  in  the  ages  ahead 
of  them,  —  men  like  Socrates,  Roger 
Bacon,  and  Galileo.  But  though  each 
tenaciously  guarded  his  contribution  for 
the  future,  I  suspect  that  in  general  each 
had  his  misgivings  about  the  strenuous 
youth  who  did  not  happen  to  look  to 
him  for  guidance.  Men  who  have  won 
great  victories  in  their  time  cannot  be- 
lieve that  the  battles  they  see  preparing 
for  the  new  time  are  to  be  really  worth 
fighting. 

The  transition  from  century  to  cen- 
tury is  not  so  great  as  the  transition  from 
childhood  to  maturity;  therefore  its  les- 
son cannot  be  so  marked.  But  it  sug- 

177 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

gests  a  method  which  evidently  per- 
vades all  life.  We  ought  not  to  be 
surprised  that  it  puts  its  mark  upon 
the  transition  from  life  through  death 
to  future  life.  That  transition  must  be 
greater  than  the  transition  from  age  to 
age  here;  it  must  be  as  great,  at  least, 
as  the  transition  from  childhood  to  man- 
hood, where  we  can  see  its  wholesome 
benefit.  We  may  reverently  say  that 
God  keeps  the  secrets  of  the  immortal 
life  against  the  day  of  our  coming  to  it, 
as  he  keeps  the  secrets  of  the  stages  in 
our  life  here;  and  He  does  it,  we  may 
as  reverently  think,  in  order  that  we 
may  live  each  day  of  opportunity  as  if 
it  were  eternity. 


178 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  GOD 

III 

Another  criticism  often  made  of  the 
world  is  that  there  is  a  reckless  quantity 
of  everything,  including  human  beings. 
Some  insects  by  myriads  are  born  and 
perish  in  an  afternoon.  Can  they  serve 
any  use  ?  One  cannot  roam  over  a  sum- 
mer hillside  without  seeing  the  fruits  of 
wild  life  going,  as  one  murmurs,  to 
waste.  And  what  shall  we  think  of  what 
seems  to  us  the  superfluous  humanity  of 
the  earth,  —  the  people  who  have  ap- 
parently no  joy  and  who  bring  no  joy, 
— the  odious,  the  degraded,  the  maimed, 
the  defective  ?  Often  reflection  upon  im- 
mortality has  been  marred  by  the  thought 
of  the  indiscriminate  multitudes  of  peo- 
ple who  have  existed  through  the  ages 
of  history.  How  can  they  all  be  brought 

179 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

to  unity?  How  can  any  conceivable 
heaven  contain  them?  William  James, 
with  his  genius  and  originality,  once 
attacked  the  problem  in  his  Ingersoll 
Lecture;  and  only  a  few  days  ago  some 
one,  with  imagination  and  assurance 
and  a  faculty  for  reckoning,  declared 
that  all  the  people  now  alive  and  all 
who  had  lived  could  be  seated  comfort- 
ably in  the  State  of  New  Jersey,  with 
some  space  between  the  chairs!  But 
most  people  are  worried  not  so  much 
by  the  excessive  numbers  of  humanity 
as  by  the  apparently  useless  or  wasted 
lives.  Can  God,  they  ask,  really  feel 
responsible  for  all  the  souls  whom  He 
has  allowed  to  come  into  the  world? 

We  shall  reach  a  clearer  answer  if 
we  examine  some  of  the  details  of  what 
we  are  apt  to  call  the  lavish  overpro- 

i8o 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  GOD 

duction  of  nature.  It  is  a  scandal  to 
many  that  of  the  hundreds  of  acorns 
produced  by  an  oak  only  a  few  become 
trees  in  their  turn.  The  assumption  is 
that  the  only  legitimate  use  of  an  acorn 
is  to  grow  into  a  tree.  Probably  no  one 
has  ever  observed  nature  with  the  com- 
bination of  scientific  acuteness  and  poeti- 
cal appreciation  shown  by  the  remark- 
able French  naturalist,  Fabre.  In  one 
of  his  books  M.  Fabre  dwells  upon  the 
various  uses  of  the  acorns.  Many  of  them, 
he  shows,  become  the  birthplace  of  the 
elephant  beetle.  Selecting  the  point 
farthest  from  the  cup,  the  mother  bores 
through  it  into  the  tender  meat  in  the 
extreme  opposite  end,  and  there  deposits 
her  egg.  The  young  larva,  being  born, 
lives  first  on  the  tender  food  in  the  cup, 
then  on  the  filings  of  the  long  bore.    It 

i8i 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

is  now  strong  enough  to  eat  the  hard 
meat  which  remains;  and,  when  the 
acorn  falls  to  the  ground,  the  little  being 
crawls  out  and  goes  into  the  ground, 
leaving  nothing  but  a  hollow  shell.  This 
insect  so  reared  becomes  the  favorite 
autumn  food  of  the  blackbird, "  the  min- 
strel of  the  forest."  Of  the  acorns  which 
remain,  the  field  mouse  takes  what  it 
can  to  store  near  its  nest;  and  the  farmer 
takes  his  share  for  his  pigs,  and  lo!  says 
M.  Fabre,  we  have  the  most  excellent 
of  bacon !  If  any  acorns  yet  have  not 
been  used,  they  in  time  fall  to  dust,  and 
enrich  the  soil,  making  the  old  oak  grow 
more  sturdy  because  of  their  contribu- 
tion to  its  roots;  and  the  fowls  of  the  air 
come  to  lodge  in  its  branches,  to  feast, 
and  to  sing,  their  joy  being  in  some 
subtle  way  increased  because  the  acorns 

182 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  GOD 

have  perished.  So  it  is,  according  to  the 
great  naturalist,  that  not  one  acorn  is 
wasted  out  of  all  the  thousands. 

Several  years  ago  I  was  spending  a 
few  weeks  in  a  magnificent  wilderness 
crossed  by  a  transcontinental  railway. 
A  number  of  people  were  there  to  rest 
from  hard  work  and  to  gather  inspira- 
tion for  work  ahead  of  them.  A  little 
way  from  the  railway  station  one  could, 
by  breaking  new  paths,  come  upon 
scenes  which  possibly  no  man  before 
had  ever  beheld.  Every  moment  could 
be  given  to  the  exploration  of  the 
beauty  and  grandeur  of  nature,  which 
seemed  to  be  thrown  at  one's  feet  with 
a  wild  extravagance.  One  day  when  a 
train  stopped  at  the  station,  a  traveller 
alighted  and  walked  as  far  as  the  time 
would  allow  him.  I  stood  with  him  on 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

a  little  rustic  bridge  spanning  a  moun- 
tain torrent.  Before  us  loomed  the 
snow-capped  summit  of  a  towering 
mountain;  lesser  peaks  kept  it  com- 
pany, with  their  stern  rock  and  gleam- 
ing snow;  and  in  the  foreground  were 
the  dark  green  pines,  and  then  the 
luxuriant  undergrowth  encouraged  by 
the  warm  winds  from  the  Pacific.  Over 
all  was  the  sun-filled  air,  crisp  and  in- 
spiriting; and  there  was  the  music  of 
many  waters  coming  down  the  steep 
cascades  to  join  the  stream  which  was 
pouring  over  the  rocks  beneath  us.  The 
power  of  God  seemed  to  come  through 
it  all:  one  felt  all  weariness  taken  away; 
and  everything  bright  and  pure  and 
strong  seemed  possible,  if  one  only 
could  get  the  forces  which  God  had 
placed  there  into  one's  mind  and  heart 

184 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  GOD 

and  soul.  Suddenly  the  traveller  turned 
and  said,  "What  an  awful  waste  of 
water-power!  "  He  proved  to  be  a  no- 
table manufacturer  whose  mills  were 
on  the  banks  of  a  New  England  river; 
and  all  he  saw  in  that  august  scene  was 
a  stupendous  amount  of  water-power 
gone  to  waste.  Obviously  it  never  oc- 
curred to  him  that  mountains  and  gla- 
ciers, solemn  pines  and  flowing  waters, 
could  have  any  value  but  a  commercial 
value.  That  they  might  possibly  build 
up  the  unseen  spirit  of  humanity  was 
altogether  beyond  his  experience  or  his 
imagination. 

From  such  thoughts  about  the  acorns 
and  the  mountain  torrents  it  is  now 
easy  to  make  a  general  deduction.  If 
we  had  sufficient  knowledge  about  the 
needs  of  man  and  the  nature  around 

i8s 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

man,  I  think  we  should  find  that,  even 
in  what  seems  the  most  ruthless  over- 
production and  the  most  extravagant 
waste,  there  is  a  real  use  for  every- 
thing. God  surely  is  willing  to  be  held 
responsible  for  all  that  He  has  made 
and  is  making. 

And  thus  we  return  to  the  thought 
of  the  overwhelming  number  of  men. 
How  shall  we  dare  to  think  it  possible 
that  such  a  motley  assembly  as  human- 
ity can  attain  to  immortality?  Some 
such  thought  as  this  was  doubtless  dis- 
turbing the  minds  of  the  first  Christian 
disciples,  for  our  Saviour  said  one  day: 
"Are  not  five  sparrows  sold  for  two 
farthings  ?  And  not  one  of  them  is  for- 
gotten in  the  sight  of  God.  But  the  very 
hairs  of  your  head  are  all  numbered. 
Fear  not  therefore:   ye   are   of  more 

i86 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  GOD 

value  than  many  sparrows."  That  high- 
est of  testimony  may  be  put  at  the  end 
of  all  our  investigation  of  nature  and 
human  nature :  it  confirms,  it  reassures, 
it  constructs.  God  has  made  worlds 
full  of  men,  generation  after  genera- 
tion. Lavish  he  has  been,  but  never 
wasteful.  We  may  venture,  on  the  high- 
est ground,  to  say  that  not  one  of  them 
is  forgotten.  Ungracious  they  often 
are  ;  brutal  and  false  they  often  are; 
yes,  many  are  inefficient  and  blunder- 
ing, blocking  the  path  of  those  whose 
courage  and  industry  would  otherwise 
give  them  the  crown  of  achievement. 
For  a  good  many  only  excuses  can  be 
made,  and  the  Great  Heart  of  the  world 
can  only  cry,  "Father,  forgive  them, 
for  they  know  not  what  they  do."  It 
is  hard  to  believe  that  even  by  the  most 

187 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

generous  interpretation  such  people  as 
these  have  been  of  use  in  this  present 
world,  except  perhaps  to  toughen  the 
souls  of  the  saints  and  heroes  who 
must  win  in  spite  of  them.  If  they  are 
useless  here,  there  is  only  one  alterna- 
tive: the  God  who  made  them  and  is 
willing  to  be  held  responsible  for  them, 
must  some  way  still  remember  them. 
Are  they  not  of  more  value  than  many 
sparrows?  And  that  can  only  mean 
that  God,  being  by  His  will  responsi- 
ble, is  holding  for  them  immortality. 

We  are  brought  by  such  considera- 
tions very  close  to  the  Larger  Hope, 
of  which  I  have  already  twice  spoken 
in  these  lectures.  There  is  such  a  thing 
in  life  as  free  will ;  and  man  must  choose 
whether  he  will  be  saint  or  devil.  Even 
God's  utmost  responsibility  cannot  make 

i88 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  GOD 

man  of  use,  if  by  forcing  him  God  takes 
from  him  that  which  is  God's  highest 
gift,  —  the  gift  of  self-direction.  But  all 
one  can  learn  from  the  most  authorita- 
tive sources  makes  one  every  day  more 
convinced  that  God  will  never  shirk 
His  loving  responsibility  for  every  child 
of  man  to  whom  He  has  given  a  living 
soul.  Through  eternity  God's  yearning 
Fatherhood  will  be  seeking  him.  The 
desperate  and  wayward  soul  may  go  to 
the  utmost  bounds  of  the  blackest  night, 
but  God  will  be  there.  And  at  some 
moment  of  eternity,  we  may  hope  (we 
cannot  know)  that  the  scarred  and  bat- 
tered being  will  turn  and  recognize  the 
Love  that  is  seeking  it  everywhere,  will 
yield  to  the  high  use  to  which  God  cre- 
ated it,  and  will  come  out  into  the  light 
of  the  morning.  God  has  made  a  practi- 

189 


THE  GIFT  OF   IMMORTALITY 

cally  infinite  host  of  humanity;  but  He 
cares  for  each  individual.  He,  by  His 
own  Word,  accepts  the  responsibility. 

IV 

Men  all  on  fire  to  bring  in  at  once  the 
kingdom  of  heaven  are  baffled  when 
they  look  up  to  the  Leader  of  the  uni- 
verse, because  He  seems  to  leave  much 
of  the  struggle  to  erring  and  wavering 
men,  and  allows  the  accomplishment 
of  the  brave  and  good  to  be  coun- 
teracted by  the  mistakes  and  wilful 
knavery  of  the  worthless.  Why,  ex- 
claim these  ardent  saints,  does  not  God, 
like  a  giant  among  pigmies,  thrust  in 
His  hand  and  crush  all  opposition  to 
His  righteousness  and  love  ?  Why  are 
all  the  hideous  crimes  against  the  true 
humanity  permitted? 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  GOD 

If  we  believe  in  God  as  the  absolute 
Master  of  His  universe  we  can  have  no 
doubt  that  God  could  make  men  as  per- 
fect as  the  flowers.  He  could  interfere 
at  every  turn  with  the  free  will  which 
He  would  then  only  apparently  give  to 
men,  and  all  their  errors  and  failures 
would  instantly  be  cancelled.  But  the 
price  of  this  perfection  would  be  that 
men  would  be  stripped  of  their  freedom : 
they  would  be  reduced  to  the  level  of 
things, — beautiful  things  to  be  sure, 
things  like  the  rose  or  the  shimmering 
sea,  —  but  still  only  things. 

The  all-important  difference  between 
a  thing  and  a  person  is  that  a  person 
can  return  by  life  the  love  and  care 
which  God  bestows:  a  person  can  be 
the  friend  of  God;  a  thing  can  be  only 
His  creature.  The  only  philosophy  which 

191 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

can  adequately  explain  the  creation  of 
man  is  that  God  is  so  overwhelmingly 
the  God  of  Love  that  He  longs  to  win 
the  love  of  His  creatures.  You  cannot 
drive  one  to  love,  you  can  only  give 
love  and  wait  for  its  return.  It  is  a  form 
of  persuasion,  if  you  will,  only  more. 
Thus  God  gives  men  freedom  to  do 
right,  or  to  do  wrong,  to  please  Him  or 
to  grieve  Him,  to  be  His  friends  or  to 
try  to  be  His  enemies. 

Just  here  enters  the  necessary  thought 
of  immortality.  For  it  is  quite  evident 
that  time  is  not  enough,  as  our  human 
experience  demonstrates,  to  make  this 
human  choice  of  God  complete,  either 
for  even  the  best  men  individually,  or 
for  the  race  as  a  whole,  —  not  to 
speak  of  the  forlorn  beings  who  have 
altogether  missed  the  way.  Immortality 

192 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  GOD 

is  the  extension  of  man's  opportunity. 
If  not  in  this  life,  in  some  of  the  stages  of 
life  beyond  it  the  best  men  maybe  trusted 
to  give  back  to  God  such  a  measure  of 
the  love  which  He  has  given  to  them 
that  the  bestowal  of  freedom  will  be 
justified  to  the  divine  plan.  And  then 
we  must  ask  wistfully,  as  we  have  real 
love  within  us,  whether  the  surprising 
opportunities  of  eternity  will  not  be 
sufficient  to  win  those  who  have  misun- 
derstood here,  or  even  those  who  have 
contemptuously  turned  their  backs  on  a 
Father's  plea.  Whatever  our  hopes  or 
our  fears,  our  logic  or  our  instinct,  we 
cannot  fail  to  place  before  our  imagina- 
tion the  possibility. 

In  all  this  contemplation  we  see 
emerging  an  outstanding  characteristic 
of  God,  —  His  divine  patience.   God's 

193 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

patience  is  part  of  His  responsibility  for 
immortality.  All  history,  so  far  as  we 
know  it,  is  the  record  of  God's  patience. 
By  nature,  by  prophets,  most  of  all 
through  Christ,  He  has  warned.  He  has 
encouraged,  He  has  displayed  His  love. 
But  to  win  man's  free  gift  of  Himself 
what  has  God  not  borne !  Through  ages 
of  man's  crude  vaunting,  unrighteous 
power,  and  selfish  aggrandisement,  God 
has  waited.  The  loathsome  sins  of  the 
Caesar  Borgias  and  the  Catherine  de' 
Medicis  besmirch  the  pages  of  history, 
and  yet  God  does  not  smite  them  with 
His  lightnings:  He  waits  for  their  tyranny 
to  be  overpast.  The  sinister  weakness 
of  the  Henry  the  Thirds  and  the  Qiieen 
Annes  allows  villainy  to  plot  its  malice 
in  high  places,  and  still  those  who  seem 
to  rule  and  cannot,  continue  to  sit  on 

194 


> 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  GOD 

their  thrones;  God  waits  for  real  lead- 
ers to  arise  among  the  people.  Even  the 
Church,  which  ought  always  to  be 
counted  upon,  has  had  its  Alexander 
the  Sixths  in  Rome,  its  Torquemadas 
in  Spain,  its  Dean  Swifts  in  England, 
its  Cotton  Mathers  in  Massachusetts; 
and,  in  spite  of  it  all,  God's  mercy  is 
stretched  out  still:  He  waits  for  the 
Church  to  learn  pity  and  tolerance  and 
love.  This  is  not  the  way  the  best  of 
men  would  control  history  if  they  could 
control  it:  they  would  smash  into  it 
with  all  their  force;  they  would  stamp 
out  the  rapacious,  the  detestable,  the 
slave-maker,  and  the  cruel.  As  it  is, 
their  cry  is  to  God  that  he  will  play 
just  such  a  role:  — 


19s 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

Let  God  arise,  and  let  his  enemies  be  scattered : 
Let    them    also    that    hate    him    flee    before 

him.  .  .   . 
Let  the  wicked  perish  at  the  presence  of  God. 

Long  after  the  Hebrew  poet  had  sung 
this  hymn,  Cromwell  took  the  words 
for  his  battle-cry,  and,  facing  theworld- 
liness  of  King  Charles's  Court,  believed 
himself  the  scourge  of  an  impatient 
God.  But  the  most  sagacious  saints 
have  not  found  God  in  the  great  and 
strong  wind  which  rends  the  moun- 
tains, nor  in  the  earthquake,  nor  in  the 
fire,  but  in  the  still  small  voice,  the 
voice  of  waiting  for  men  to  understand, 
the  voice  of  a  divine  patience.  How  easy 
it  would  be,  thinks  the  man  who  is  only 
half  a  saint,  to  burn  up  the  hopeless,  to 
put  the  well-intentioned  but  flimsy  into 
straight-jackets,  and  to  keep   a   strict 

196 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  GOD 

paternal  watch  over  the  reasonably 
good;  then  God  might  have  a  world  in 
which  it  would  be  pleasant  to  dwell. 
But  these  unfinished  saints  do  not  know 
the  Father  of  all  the  living;  they  do  not 
remember  that  He  would  not  that  any 
should  perish;  they  forget  that  even  to 
Christ  God  permitted  crucifixion  by 
men  for  whom  Christ  asked  forgive- 
ness. God  is  a  God  who  waits.  He  is 
the  God  of  inexhaustible  patience. 

If  history  shows  such  an  evident  re- 
cord, what  must  the  days  of  immortality 
show  but  the  same  patience  of  God?  If 
God  and  His  angels  now  rejoice  over 
one  sinner  who  repents  more  than  over 
ninety  and  nine  just  persons  who  need 
no  repentance,  how  can  that  attitude 
be  anything  but  an  eternal  attribute  of 
His  will  ?  It  must  not  only  be  a  blessed 

197 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

aspect  of  the  immortal  life  of  humanity, 
but  it  must  also  be  one  mighty  reason 
why  God  should  give  immortality  to 
those  of  His  creatures  upon  whom 
He  has  bestowed  freedom.  Browning 
looked  upon  the  seemingly  perfect  art 
of  Florence,  and  then  gloomily  cast  his 
eye  upon  the  uncouth  imperfection  of 
man.  Courage  returned  to  him  when 
he  remembered  that  these  things  of 
art  had  only  time  in  store,  and  so  had 
to  be  perfect  now  or  else  for  ever  fail; 
but  man  had  eternity  for  his  develop- 
ment, and  thus  could  outstrip  at  last 
the  perfection  of  Michelangelo's  David, 
—  the  perfection,  we  may  add,  per- 
mitted by  the  God  of  everlasting  pa- 
tience. Through  our  struggle  upward 
we  now  are  wont  to  pray  to  a  God 
whom  we  can  thus  address:  "O  most 

198 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  GOD 

mighty  God,  and  merciful  Father,  who 
hast  compassion  upon  all  men,  and 
who  wouldest  not  the  death  of  a  sinner, 
but  rather  that  he  should  turn  from  his 
sin,  and  be  saved."  He  will  not  now 
break  the  bruised  reed.  He  will  not 
now  quench  the  smoking  flax.  Can  He 
or  will  He  ever  do  it  ? 

Back  then  we  come  to  the  Larger 
Hope.  The  mystery  of  God  is  blinding 
because  of  its  light;  and  though  we 
may  be  obliged  to  leave  many  a  sub- 
ject in  the  form  of  questions,  it  is  safer, 
when  we  attempt  definitions,  to  say  the 
positive  convictions  which  come  to 
our  reason  or  to  our  intuition,  and  to 
be  extremely  chary  of  the  negative 
logic  which  often  slams  the  door  in  the 
face  of  hope.  When  we  study  God's 
patience  in  the  records  of  history  and 

199 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

in  the  manifestation  of  His  glory  in  the 
earthly  life  of  Christ,  we  must  wonder 
whether  we  can  conceive  that  the 
Blessed  God  can  be  really  and  com- 
pletely happy  so  long  as  one  of  His 
children  (for  that  is  His  name  for  us 
all)  is  gone  astray  into  the  brambles; 
so  long  as  only  one  is  still  unhappy 
however  the  man  himself  may  seem  to 
choose  his  unhappiness;  so  long  as  a 
single  man  refuses  to  understand  that 
he  is  loved  by  the  heavenly  King. 
Logic  constantly  in  theology  has  grown 
weary,  and  has  set  a  limit  to  God's  pa- 
tience :  it  has  allowed  it  to  last  in  time, 
but  it  has  blotted  it  sometimes  from 
eternity.  It  is  the  mother  who  has  a 
bad  son  who  can  tell  what  the  love 
which  God  put  in  her  heart  can  do. 
This  son  was  repulsive  to  all  but  her; 

200 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  GOD 

but  she  still  hoped;  she  waited  for  him 
to  return  to  the  beauty  and  kindness  of 
his  childhood;  she  prayed;  she  longed; 
she  promised  God  her  own  life,  if  He 
would  give  goodness  to  her  poor  boy. 
But  death  crossed  this  son's  path,  before 
she  or  any  one  else  could  see  the  slight- 
est change.  He  was  still  in  the  far  coun- 
try living  with  the  swine  like  a  beast, 
and  the  end  came.  But  is  it  the  end? 
Is  that  mother's  patience  gone;  or  has 
she  still  love  and  hope  for  him?  Do 
you  not  know  that,  though  she  be  the 
straightest  of  Calvinists,  she  is  praying 
still  for  that  dear  child  ?  Is  she  saying 
that  he  has  been  undutiful,  that  he  has 
been  unforgivably  cruel  to  her,  that  he 
has  spoiled  her  life,  that  he  is  bring- 
ing her  grey  hairs  with  sorrow  to  the 
grave  ?  No,  you  know  that  not  one  of 

20I 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

these  things  is  true  of  her  prayers :  she 
prays  with  the  same  hope  with  which 
she  prayed  when  he  lay  in  his  cradle, 
when  he  spoke  his  first  words,  when 
he  threw  his  arms  about  her  neck  and 
promised  never  again  to  grieve  hen 
She  is  waiting.  She  is  hoping.  She  is 
loving.  She  has  patience  which  she 
knows  will  go  with  her  through  eternity. 
Where  does  she  get  it?  Is  it  a  trick  of 
the  devil,  an  imagination  from  some 
imp?  Ah!  such  love  does  not  come 
from  such  a  source.  Whence  can  such 
love  come  but  from  the  central  fire  of 
Love,  from  God !  There  you  see  a  spark 
which  has  flashed  from  the  eternal  pa- 
tience of  God.  It  is  to  give  such  patience 
room  that,  among  other  reasons,  God 
has  granted  to  men  immortality,  —  for 
men's  sake,  —  and  for  His  own, 

202 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  GOD 

V 

Hardly  a  man,  however  brave,  can 
fail  at  some  tragic  moment  to  reproach 
God  with  the  hardness  of  life.  This  hard- 
ness does  not  depend  on  desert,  either 
individually  or  collectively.  If  a  man 
were  exactly  paid  for  what  he  had  done, 
he  might  preserve  Stoic  calm.  If  he 
took  the  consequences  of  being  a  mem- 
ber of  humanity,  and  so  sometimes 
reaped  another  man's  bad  sowings,  he 
might  be  philosophical  about  it.  But 
there  is  hardness  in  life  which  would 
remain  even  if  every  individual,  acting 
by  himself  and  as  a  member  of  society, 
had  never  done  a  wrong  act.  There  is 
hardness  inherent  in  human  life.  For 
instance,  before  a  man  can  make  his 
garden,  he  must  chop  down  the  trees, 

203 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

pull  out  the  stumps,  dig  out  the  roots 
and  the  stones,  and  then  by  some  de- 
vice enrich  the  soil.  It  is  very  hard 
work.  And  harder  experiences  await 
him:  there  will  be  too  much  rain  or 
too  little,  too  much  cold  or  too  much 
heat,  so  that  he  will  fear  frost  and  mil- 
dew and  drought.  Besides,  there  will 
be  the  cut- worm  and  other  greedy  cater- 
pillars, with  all  manner  of  tiny  beetles, 
to  threaten  his  crops  ;  and  perhaps  the 
locusts  may  sweep  down  some  morn- 
ing to  eat  every  tender  shoot.  The  suc- 
cess of  this  garden  is  won  only  by  work 
and  anxiety,  and,  if  life  depend  upon 
it,  by  tragedy  also.  Then  there  are  the 
calamitous  forces  of  nature,  such  as  the 
lightning,  the  tidal  wave,  the  volcanic 
eruption,  the  tornado,  the  earthquake. 
It  is  exceedingly  difficult  to  find  a  cor- 

204 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  GOD 

ner  of  the  earth  where  some  dreadful 
natural  foe  does  not  beset  one's  peace: 
if  it  is  none  of  these  things,  it  may  be  a 
malarial  climate  or  the  prevalence  of 
some  dangerous  insect.  By  skill  and 
care  and  work  some  of  these  dangers 
may  be  overcome  or  at  least  minimized; 
but  they  cannot  be  wholly  eradicated. 
Harder  than  any  of  these  physical  dif- 
ficulties are  the  fierce  temptations  which 
beset  every  living  soul.  Prosperity,  ad- 
versity, and  the  state  of  life  which  pro- 
vides just  enough,  all  have  their  peculiar 
kinds  of  temptation,  so  beguiling  that  it 
seems  impossible  not  to  be  scorched 
by  them,  if  not  quite  ruined.  Remorse 
comes  after  each  yielding,  but  the  mem- 
ory of  it  fades;  and  the  temptation,  bid- 
ing its  time,  reappears  with  all  its  ap- 
pealing grimaces  and  promises.  When 

205  • 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

people  really  wish  to  be  good,  why 
should  it  be  made  thus  hard  to  attain 
goodness  ? 

At  the  end  of  the  catalogue,  —  which 
might  be  indefinitely  prolonged,  —  is 
death.  The  death  which  one  must  die 
for  oneself  can  be  accepted  on  faith  as 
a  door  to  wider  and  better  existence; 
but  the  deaths  one  must  endure  in  the 
desolation  and  heart-breaking  caused 
by  the  vanishing  of  friends  are  woefully 
hard.  Faith  in  God  may  be  stronger 
than  death;  but  the  sorrow  and  the 
loneliness  are  well-nigh  unbearable. 
There  is  no  least  doubt  that  life  is  hard 
—  hard  for  every  one  in  one  way  or  an- 
other; and,  in  spite  of  all  the  mingling 
of  comfortings  and  joys,  hard  to  the  end. 

There  have  been  times  when  thinkers 
have  tried  to  relieve  God  of  thrusting 

206 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  GOD 

these  burdens  on  men's  backs;  and  have 
posited  a  dualism  in  the  governance  of 
the  universe,  —  Nature  or  Satan,  some- 
thing or  somebody,  put  these  thorns  on 
the  roses,  and  God  is  responsible  only 
for  the  flowers  with  their  fragrance  and 
beauty.  But  this  evasion  is  always  dis- 
credited when  men  live  and  think  their 
best.  When  we  see  what  hardness  can 
do  and  has  done  for  many  an  individual, 
many  a  family,  many  a  community,  we 
know  that  it  is  possible  to  find  a  place 
for  hardness  in  love.  A  brilliant  mod- 
ern essayist  has  written,  evidently  out 
of  his  own  experience,  "If  the  light  is 
clouded,  and  the  joy  is  blotted  out,  and 
the  energy  burns  low,  it  is  a  sign,  not 
that  we  have  failed,  but  that  the  mind 
of  God  is  bent  still  more  urgently  upon 
us."  And  so  we  cut  the  Gordian  knot, 

207 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

and  say  that  God  is  responsible,  by  His 
loving  will,  for  all  the  hardness  of  life. 
Inevitably  we  must  ask.  Why?  The 
answer  is  similar  to  the  philosophy  by 
which  the  necessary  idea  of  God's  pa- 
tience is  discovered.  We  think  that  God 
is  so  far  the  overflowing  of  love  that  He 
made  mankind  in  order  to  have  loving 
friends,  —  not  only  beings  to  love,  but 
beings  to  be  loved  by.  Accordingly,  He 
bestows  the  perilous  gift  of  freedom: 
He  desires,  we  think,  real  friends,  not 
mechanically  perfect  automatons.  And 
now,  as  we  pore  over  the  hardness  of 
life,  we  read  a  new  revelation  of  His  will 
for  us :  He  wants  not  only  friends  who 
shall  give  back  some  of  the  love  which 
He  gives  to  them,  but  He  wants  also 
great  friends,  —  friends  who  have  been 
through   hard   places,  and   who   have 

208j 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  GOD 

overcome;  friends  who  have  victory 
written  on  their  foreheads.  "Lay  a 
sword  upon  my  coffin,  I  pray  you,"  said  - 
an  old  poet;  "for  I  have  been  a  brave 
soldier  in  the  wars  for  the  liberty  of 
mankind."  May  God  not  desire  friends 
of  whom  such  words  may  truthfully  be 
said  ?    I  think  so. 

With  this  hypothesis  in  mind,  can  we 
not  (as  a  people  who  try  to  please  God) 
take  our  hard  times  manfully;  looking 
upon  them  not  as  obstacles,  but  as  chal- 
lenges to  our  possible  fibre  ?  If  we  live 
on  barren  wastes,  can  we  not  believe 
in  God  enough  to  trust  that  every  hard- 
ness conceals  some  richness;  and  so, 
digging  deep,  bring  up,  as  from  some 
barren  Kimberley,  the  vast  wealth  which 
lies  beneath  ?  If  sorrow  leave  us  forsaken 
and  dreary,  can  we  not  lift  our  heads, 

209 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

brush  the  tears  away,  and  go  out  to  seek 
those  whose  sorrow  is  like  unto  our 
sorrow,  and  fill  up  with  sympathy  and 
love  the  aching  void  in  our  hearts,  be- 
coming thus  a  strong  tower  of  defence 
against  the  stormy  wind,  and  drawing 
into  the  shelter  of  our  strength  and 
peace  those  who  might  otherwise  faint 
by  the  way  and  be  lost  in  the  trackless 
desert  of  hopelessness?  If  a  man  fails 
in  his  work;  if  all  his  ambitions  tumble 
about  his  ears;  if  he  knows  that  he  is 
what  the  world  calls  a  ruined  man,  and 
there  is  no  chance  that  in  the  years  left 
to  him  he  can  build  up  what  has  fallen, 
then  may  he  not  take  this  poisoning 
experience,  crush  the  poison  quite  out 
of  it,  and  go  running  to  the  others  who 
he  may  suspect  are  failing  in  just  the 
same  way,  giving  them  not  so  much 

2IO 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  GOD 

sympathy  as  a  cry  of  hope,  giving  to 
their  weakness  and  despair  a  measure 
of  the  strength  which  he  has  been  able 
to  extract  from  his  misery,  and  saving 
more  than  one  soul  alive? 

Even  if  this  world  were  all,  it  would 
be  serviceable  to  make  such  high  use 
as  this  of  the  hardness  of  life.  But  lift 
the  curtain,  and  peer  into  the  life  im- 
mortal which  stretches  out  and  up  to 
the  hills  of  eternity.  You  may  think  at 
first  that  you  can  see  nothing  but  the 
long  reaches  of  space,  empty  and  mo- 
notonous. Then,  by  faith,  I  am  sure  you 
will  see  something  else:  you  will  have 
a  vision  of  what  it  is  to  the  most  loving 
God  to  have  through  the  eternal  years 
loving  friends  who  are  strong,  and  eter- 
nally growing  stronger;  because  in  the 
years  of  earth  the  conquest  was  nobly 

211 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

begun.  Every  toiler  who  has  sufficient 
work  to  need  helpers  in  its  perform- 
ance, knows  the  joy  of  finding  among 
the  ordinary,  routine  labourers  the  men 
and  the  women  who  have  had  sufficient 
experience  in  life,  and  that  experience 
sufficiently  well  met,  to  give  them  un- 
derstanding and  sympathy  and  strength. 
Their  eyes  answer  your  best  dream  for 
the  work ;  you  put  your  hand  to  the  ful- 
filment of  the  dream  with  new  courage. 
The  work  is  covered  with  glory  and 
gladness  because  strong  helpers  share 
with  you  its  heaviness  and  its  victory. 
All  this  is  a  poor,  dim  shadow  of  what 
must  be  in  the  blessedness  of  God 
when  His  children  come  to  His  help, 
not  only  with  loyalty  and  love,  but  also 
with  strength.  He  gave  hardness;  they 
bowed  their  necks  to  its  weight;  they 

212 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  GOD 

lifted  it  by  their  strength ;  and  now  they 
are  co-workers  with  the  Master  of  the 
universe;  they  are  men,  great  and 
strong. 

What  shall  we  say  of  the  man  him- 
self who  has  torn  strength  from  the 
hardness  of  life,  and  with  this  strength 
has  entered  the  life  immortal  ?  He  must 
confess  two  truths.  The  first  of  these  is 
that  life  would  ultimately  be  trivial  and 
poor,  were  it  not  that  hard  times  strew 
the  pathway.  Whether  the  difficulties 
shall  continue  after  death  we  cannot  tell ; 
if  they  continue,  the  light  upon  them 
will  be  so  clear  that  they  can  be  shoul- 
dered without  repining.  But  as  one 
looks  back  upon  the  difficult  days  and 
years,  one  may  see  that  God's  will  or 
God's  permission  is  bound  up  with 
every  pain  and  every  hardship  which 

213 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

fell  to  one's  lot.  Everything  means 
something.  Everything  has  a  divine 
possibility.  We  cannot  think  even  of 
the  perfect  strength  of  Christ  without 
remembering  the  Cross  and  the  way 
He  endured  it.  Life  itself  is  less  than 
life  if  it  does  not  contain  the  strength 
due  to  overcoming  that  which  is  un- 
deniably hard. 

The  other  truth  which  a  man  must 
confess  in  the  light  of  his  victory  is  that 
the  hardness  of  life  is  not  completely 
intelligible  until  immortality  is  recog- 
nized as  its  goal.  "  To  him  that  over- 
cometh,"  is  the  heavenly  promise  of  the 
Book  of  Revelation,  "to  him  will  I  give 
to  eat  of  the  tree  of  life,  which  is  in  the 
Paradise  of  God."  So  many  people  suf- 
fer to  the  very  end  of  the  earthly  jour- 
ney, with  so  little  chance  to  turn  their 

214 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  GOD 

heroic    endurance   to   the  gladness  of 
service,  that  a  sane  observer  cannot  be- 
lieve that  in  a  world  where  nothing  is 
wasted  such  victory  is  to  be  a  mere  re- 
cord: by  its  very  strength  and  conquest 
it  assumes  an  opportunity  for  useful- 
ness. The  God  who  is  certainly  willing 
to  be  responsible  for  all  the  stubborn 
material  which  this  world  contains  for 
the  cultivation  of  men's  endurance,  will 
just  as  certainly  be  responsible  for  giv- 
ing this  store  of  power  the  utmost  free- 
dom to  be  spent  for  the  lasting  good  of 
humanity  and  the  beatific  vision  of  God; 
that  is,  the  return  to  God  of  the  love  He 
gave,  made  through  tribulation  strong, 
—  the  love  which  is  strong  as  death. 
That  means  immortality. 

Emerson  in  his  last  days  lost  much 
of  his  mental  faculty.  When  his  friend 

215 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

Longfellow  died  Emerson  was  led  to 
his  house,  and  for  a  long  time  he  stood 
looking  down  into  the  face  of  the  dead 
poet.  At  last  he  said,  "I  cannot  recall 
his  name,  but  I  know  that  he  was  a 
beautiful  soul."  Longfellow  had  borne 
many  sorrows  with  simple  steadfast- 
ness, and  even  to  Emerson's  waning  in- 
telligence the  story  was  plain  in  the  still 
features.  It  is  a  parable  of  what  we  may 
expect  to  find  in  the  life  immortal.  There 
will  be  myriads,  I  think,  in  the  world 
to  come  who  will  bear  the  marks  in 
some  way  of  the  silent  victories  of 
earth.  Their  names  will  never  have 
been  chronicled.  We  shall  never  have 
heard  that  there  were  such  beings. 
Perhaps  they  were  kept  to  the  four 
walls  of  a  little  room  for  years.  But 
here  they  are  in  the  Paradise  of  God, 

216 


RESPONSIBILITY    OF    GOD 

—  great  and  strong  by  reason  of  their 
overcoming.  And  we  shall  say,  "We 
do  not  know  their  names,  but  we  know 
that  they  are  beautiful  souls,  —  worthy 
of  the  Master  who  seeks  their  love  and 
their  strength." 

VI 

Earlier  in  this  lecture  I  suggested  two 
possible  reasons  why  we  know  no  de- 
tails of  the  future  life;  I  wish  now  to 
add  a  third  reason.  May  it  not  be  that 
God  keeps  from  us  knowledge  of  what 
that  life  is  to  be  because  He  wishes  us 
to  trust  Him  rather  than  to  trust  our 
knowledge  ? 

We  learn  that  this  life  is  happier  if 
we  simply  do  our  best  day  by  day  and 
leave  the  consequences  in  God's  keep- 
ing.  It  is  folly  to  be  anxious  for  the 

217 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

morrow.  In  the  days  of  the  English 
Commonwealth  Bulstrode  Whitelock 
was  Ambassador  to  The  Hague.  One 
night  he  was  so  worried  by  thought  of 
the  dangers  which  threatened  both  Na- 
tion and  Church  that  he  could  not  sleep. 
His  old  servant,  sleeping  in  the  same 
room,  at  length  spoke:  "Sir,"  he  said, 
"may  I  ask  you  a  question?"  "Cer- 
tainly," replied  the  ambassador.  "  Sir," 
pleaded  the  servant,  "did  God  govern 
the  world  well  before  you  came  into 
it?"  "Undoubtedly,"  was  the  answer. 
"  And  will  He  rule  the  world  well  when 
you  have  gone  out  of  it?"  asked  the 
man.  "Undoubtedly,"  said  Whitelock. 
"  Then,  sir,"  continued  the  voice,  "  can 
you  not  trust  Him  to  rule  the  world  well 
while  you  are  in  it?"  With  this,  the 
story  says,  the  weary  statesman  turned 

218 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  GOD 

on  his  side  and  fell  asleep.  We  may 
surmise  that  what  God  asks  us  to  do 
for  eternity  is  only  an  extension  of  a 
method  which  He  is  teaching  us  by  our 
present  experience. 

Out  of  this  conjecture  flows  a  princi- 
ple which  turns  the  conjecture  into  a 
practically  assured  truth.  There  is  some- 
thing more  to  be  desired  than  life,  than 
even  immortal  life,  and  that  is  life  con- 
scious of  the  presence  and  the  love 
of  God.  At  length  we  come  to  define 
immortality  as  the  life  which  is  sus- 
tained by  the  perpetual  consciousness 
of  the  comradeship,  the  friendship,  the 
love  of  God.  "This  is  life  eternal," said 
Jesus  Christ,  "to  know  thee,  the  only 
God  .  .  ."  God,  in  asking  us  to  believe 
that  He  will  be  responsible  for  our  fu- 
ture, asks  us  first  to  feel  our  responsi- 

219 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

bility  to  know  Him,  and  to  know  Him 
now.  So  we  lay  hold  of  the  essen- 
tial characteristic  of  immortality  in  this 
period  of  our  schooling,  and  we  advance 
towards  the  next  period  with  an  always 
increasing  trust. 

"  I  should  long  ago  have  killed  my- 
self," wrote  Tolstoi,  "  if  I  had  not  had  a 
dim  hope  of  finding  God.  I  only  really 
live  when  I  feel  and  seek  Him.  .  .  . 
And  stronger  than  ever  rose  up  life 
within  and  around  me,  and  the  light 
that  then  shone  never  left  me  again." 
And  so  a  great  modern  poet  cries :  — 

My  God,  my  God,  let  me  for  once  look  on 

Thee 
As  though  not  else  existed,  we  alone ! 
And  as  creation  crumbles,  my  soul's  spark 
Expands  till  I  can  say,  —  Even  from  myself 
I  need  Thee  and  I  feel  Thee  and  I  love  Thee  : 
I  do  not  plead  my  rapture  in  Thy  vyrorks 

220 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  GOD 

For  love  of  Thee,  nor  that  I  feel  as  one 
Who  cannot  die  :  but  there  is  that  in  me 
Which  turns  to  Thee. 

Again,  it  was  a  present  experience  of 
which  St.  Augustine  wrote  when  he 
expressed  his  rapturous  hope,  "Thou 
hast  made  us  for  Thyself,  and  our  heart 
is  restless  till  it  rests  in  Thee."  So  too 
Thomas  Aquinas  felt  that  he  knew  the 
present  fruition  of  the  Godhead.  "Here," 
he  said,  "the  soul  in  a  wonderful  and 
unspeakable  manner  both  seizes  and  is 
seized  upon,  devours  and  is  herself  de- 
voured, embraces  and  is  violently  em- 
braced: and  by  the  knot  of  love  she 
unites  herself  with  God,  and  is  with 
Him  as  the  Alone  with  the  Alone."  For 
the  mystics,  who  can  say  such  words, 
immortality  is  only  the  opportunity  for 
knowing  God  more  intimately:  they  are 

221 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

indifferent  to  everything  else  which  im- 
mortality may  include. 

Christ  revealed  God  as  a  loving  and 
patient  Father;  and  His  most  compre- 
hensive declaration  about  immortality 
is,  "In  my  Father's  house  are  many 
mansions."  No  relationship  admits  one 
so  deeply  into  the  trust  which  becomes 
a  man  towards  God  as  the  relationship 
of  a  loving  child  to  his  loving  father. 
There  we  must  assume  that  the  child, 
admitting  his  lack  of  knowledge  and 
experience,  rests  in  the  confidence  that 
his  father  will  provide  for  him  what  is 
wisest  and  happiest.  It  is  of  the  essence 
of  childhood  that  it  should  have  this 
trust.  And  when  any  gift  is  given,  the 
crowning  joy  of  its  receiving  is  that 
the  child  looks  up  to  see  the  fathei^s 
happiness  because  he  has  brought  hap- 

222 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  GOD 

piness  to  his  child.  The  child  may  not 
understand  it  at  the  time;  but  long  af- 
ter he  recalls  how  his  father  looked  on 
such  and  such  a  day  when  he  thanked 
him  with  all  the  affection  of  his  nature : 
just  what  the  gift  was  may  be  forgotten; 
but  that  loving  and  radiant  glance  from 
father  to  child  is  the  symbol  of  an  eter- 
nal memory.  Just  so  must  it  be  when 
God  throws  open  the  door  of  immortal- 
ity to  His  bewildered  and  surprised  chil- 
dren. The  height  of  all  their  rejoicing 
must  be  the  love  of  God  which  they 
find  made  more  intense  by  their  grati- 
tude. Through  immortality  they  shall 
not  merely  discover  the  safety  and  re- 
pose which  they  desired,  but  they  shall 
find  in  some  wonderful  and  new  way 
the  desire  of  all  desires,  the  Lord  God. 
To  have  known  Him,  to  have  trusted 

223 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

Him  here,  is  beyond  all  other  earthly 
good;  and  the  exaltation  of  heaven  is  to 
transcend  this  earthly  knowledge  by 
the  knowledge  which  starts  out  afresh 
upon  the  eternal  journey  towards  com- 
pletion, when  we  shall  know  even  as 
we  are  known,  when  we  shall  see  the 
King  in  His  beauty  in  the  land  that  is 
very  far  off,  when  we  shall  love  Him 
indeed  who  first  loved  us. 

VII 

At  the  end  of  all  human  responsibil- 
ity towards  immortality  I  put  the  word 
Joy.  Sometimes  there  comes  a  day  in 
the  open  country  when  the  sun  shines 
on  the  lake  and  on  the  distant  hills, 
when  we  hear  the  laughter  of  little  chil- 
dren at  play,  when  from  the  dome  of 
heaven  to  the  depth  of  the  valley  there 

224 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  GOD 

seems  only  serenity,  and  all  that  an- 
noyed us  yesterday  is  forgotten  in  the 
sense  that  to-day  all  is  perfect.  The 
earth  is  Paradise  and  we  know  that  we 
walk  with  God  in  the  splendour  of  His 
kingdom.  Such  days  may  be  rare ;  but 
when  they  come  they  are  the  creative 
energy  which  we  cherish  against  the 
trials  and  discouragements  of  the  future. 
And  because  we  rejoice  for  only  one  day 
out  of  many,  we  are  able  to  carry  joy 
into  days  of  darkness.  We  know  that 
the  best  of  days,  rare  as  it  may  seem,  is 
the  normal  day,  and  the  year  is  meant 
to  be  fused  with  the  joy  of  it. 

So  it  is  that,  when  we  have  caught  a 
genuine  glimpse  of  immortality,  all  the 
experiences  of  life  ought  to  be  trans- 
figured. We  often  shrug  our  shoulders 
when  we  read  of  the  early  Christians, 

225 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

who  were  so  intent  upon  entering  the 
place  which  Christ  had  gone  to  prepare 
for  them  that  they  coveted  the  crown 
of  martyrdom.  Days  of  persecution  were 
to  them  really  as  days  of  revelry.  Stoi- 
cal Roman  gentlemen,  quite  used  to 
bravery,  were  aghast  at  this  new  sort 
of  bravery,  —  a  bravery  which  did  not 
shut  its  eyes  and  grind  its  teeth  and 
clinch  its  fists,  but  went  laughing  and 
singing  into  the  arena  to  meet  the  wild 
beasts.  The  immortal  hope  was  not  a 
speculation,  a  balanced  probability:  it 
was  the  most  sure  of  all  their  realities; 
beside  it  death  was  but  a  child's  bub- 
ble, vanishing  into  air.  Even  we.  Chris- 
tians as  we  think  ourselves,  are  inclined 
to  ask  if  these  early  martyrs  did  not  take 
death  a  little  too  lightly.  The  only  an- 
swer we  can  give  is  that  when  Chris- 

226 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  GOD 

tianity  first  burst  upon  the  world  it  was 
such  amazing  good  news,  with  all  its 
hopes  and  promises,  that  its  adherents 
were  like  the  people  who  live  through 
a  perfect  summer  day,  when  the  whole 
world  seems  to  break  into  music,  and 
one  must  sing  and  shout  for  joy,  for  only 
joy  is  real. 

In  these  sterner  days — not  really 
harder  but  less  joyous  —  a  prophet  now 
and  then  reminds  us  that  it  is  our  re- 
sponsibility to  ourselves,  to  the  world, 
and  to  God  to  hold  our  faith  in  immor- 
tality "  triumphantly,  as  a  satisfying  and 
inspiring  conviction," — to  hold  it  with 
great  joy.  The  warning  is  given  us  that 
if  we  do  not  hold  it  in  this  way  the  hope 
may  be  lost  to  men ;  and  the  patient  pro- 
cess of  attaining  it  must  be  repeated  in 
history.  However  this  may  be,  joy  is  a 

227 


K 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

contagious  quality;  and  nothing  so  con- 
vinces the  world  as  a  belief  which  is  held 
with  evident  joy.  The  oppressive  opti- 
mism which  apparently  has  never  en- 
tered any  deep  experience  and  which 
skips  gaily  over  the  surface  of  other 
people's  trouble,  cannot  be  dignified 
with  the  name  of  joy;  it  is  only  the 
twittering  of  incompetence.  But  when 
you  see  a  courageous  soul,  sensitive  and 
quick,  going  into  the  blackest  of  earthly 
pain,  and,  by  laying  hold  of  some  un- 
seen Power  so  close  that  it  may  almost 
be  said  to  be  within  him,  grasping  an 
assurance  which  transmutes  the  misery 
into  expectation,  and,  a  little  later,  by 
a  more  intimate  counsel  with  the  un- 
seen Friendship,  transmuting  the  ex- 
pectation into  certainty,  then  you  see  a 
quality  in  life  which  seems  to  have  all  the 

228 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  GOD 

minor  and  all  the  major  chords  of  expe- 
rience blended  into  a  harmony  which 
may  validly  be  called  the  expression  of 
immortal  joy.  It  is  a  joy  which  can  have 
no  jarring  surprises;  it  is  neither  bird- 
witted  nor  blind.  It  looks  steadfastly 
upon  what  many  think  to  be  only  a  sad 
or  inexplicable  scene,  and  cries  with 
the  prisoner  of  Bedford  jail,  "  Glorious 
it  was  to  see  how  the  open  region  was 
filled  with  horses  and  chariots,  with 
trumpeters  and  pipers,  with  singers  and 
players  upon  stringed  instruments,  to 
welcome  the  pilgrims  as  they  went  up, 
and  followed  one  another  in  at  the  beau- 
tiful gate  of  the  city."  Such  is  the  joy 
which  men  can  and  do  have  who  say, 
with  heads  thrown  back  and  with  eyes 
sparkling,  "I  believe  ...  in  the  life 
everlasting." 

229 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

This  joy  is  made  rational  by  the  su- 
preme fact  that  the  God  who  makes 
heaven  what  it  is  also  breathes  His  life 
into  every  particle  of  our  earthly  en- 
vironment. If  we  may  seize  upon  that 
most  practical  discernment,  the  discern- 
ment of  the  constant  Presence  of  God 
behind  and  within  all  the  outward  sights 
and  sounds  of  the  world,  then  we  shall 
know,  not  only  what  this  life  means, 
but  what  life  means  for  ever  and  even 
And  day  by  day,  as  we  trust  ourselves 
more  unreservedly  to  this  ultimate  Com- 
panionship, we  shall  know  as  we  never 
thought  we  could  know  how  utterly 
God  loves  men.  We  shall  see  him 
brooding  over  all  who  have  tangled 
their  lives  with  folly  and  indulgence 
and  hate;  we  shall  see  such  love  as  a 
human  face  has  showed  only  once  in  all 

230 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  GOD 

history;  we  shall  see  a  determination 
to  save  these  bitter  and  shameless  be- 
ings by  a  love  which  will  risk  both  the 
world  and  Himself  for  their  reclaim- 
ing; we  shall  see  a  hope  which  sur- 
passes all  philosophy  and  theology  and 
poetry  and  art  —  a  hope  which  yearns 
so  fervently  and  powerfully  for  the  love 
of  men  that  we,  too,  with  our  shallow 
human  love  and  our  little  faith,  must 
also  leap  to  the  hope  that  all  humanity, 
even  what  we  call  the  dregs,  shall  yet 
be  gathered  into  the  Father's  embrace. 
If  only,  we  cry,  they  could  see  what  we 
see,  how  could  they  hesitate  to  abandon 
all  their  mawkish  so-called  pleasure,  and 
arise  to  claim  their  heritage,  breaking 
down,  with  scalding  tears,  and  saying, 
"  I  will  go  to  my  Father." 

People  are  sometimes  afraid  to  trust 

231 


THE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY 

such  a  hope.  They  think  that  it  may  be 
wise  for  those  who  are  bad  not  to  be 
told  how  forgiving  and  patient  and  end- 
lessly expectant  God's  love  may  be: 
these  draggled  and  miry  souls  had  bet- 
ter hear  only  of  God's  unappeasable 
justice  —  then  they  may  be  frightened 
and  turn  to  Him.  Even  for  those  who 
are  now  living  fairly  good  lives,  too 
great  emphasis  on  God's  forgiving 
love  might  encourage  slackness.  So  the 
hopeful  are  bidden  to  withhold  their 
joy.  But  ponder  this  argument  of  those 
who  plead  for  an  expedient  theory  of 
ethics.  Of  two  men  which  is  the  safer: 
is  it  the  man  who  suspects  that  his  fa- 
ther so  far  tempers  his  love  with  other 
qualities  that  he  really  does  not  love 
him  at  all,  requiring  of  him  virtue  only 
that  the  father  may  not  be  disgraced  by 

232 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  GOD 

an  unworthy  son,  and  therefore  exact- 
ing duties  with  awful  penalties  for  their 
non-performance:  or,  is  it  the  man,  on 
the  other  hand,  who  is  confident  that 
his  father  loves  him  so  much  that  he  will 
die  rather  than  see  him  come  to  irre- 
trievable grief,  —  yes,  that  his  father 
loves  him  so  much  that  he  will  die  to 
make  his  love  perfectly  and  unmistak- 
ably clear  to  him  ?  Which  of  these  sons 
will  strive  to  conquer  all  his  tempta- 
tions ?  Which  will  be  likely  to  say  such 
words  as  Prince  Hal  cried  out  to  his 

father,  when  he  saw  how  great  was  his 
father's  love  for  him? 

I  will  redeem  all  this  .  .  . 

And  in  the  closing  of  some  glorious  day 

Be  bold  to  tell  you  that  I  am  your  son. 

There  can  be  no  possible  doubt  of  the 
answer.    If  human  love  can  do  a  lit- 

233 


iTHE  GIFT  OF  IMMORTALITY^ 

tie,  in  this  sacred  task  of  making  the 
world  good,  how  dare  we,  in  the  name 
of  justice  or  in  the  name  of  righteous- 
ness, or  in  any  other  name  below  the 
Highest,  set  a  limit  to  what  the  love  of 
God  can  do? 

Therefore,  knowing  that  God  is  our 
Father,  who  loves  us  as  the  Lord  Christ 
loved  the  erring  and  the  lost;  who  feels 
for  us  such  responsibility  as  that  Good 
Shepherd  felt  when  He  went  seeking 
all  the  strayed  and  sorry  sheep  until  He 
found  them;  who  is  as  eternally  giving 
Himself  for  us  as  this  same  Christ  gave 
Himself  for  His  friends  when  He  laid 
down  His  life  for  them  because  "greater 
love  hath  no  man  than  this,"  —  there- 
fore our  joy  may  be  unbounded.  He  is 
our  God  now.  He  is  the  present  solu- 
tion of  every  earthly  success  and  hap- 

234 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  GOD 

piness,  of  every  earthly  pain  and  afflic- 
tion. And  He  is  our  God  eternally. 
Because  He  is,  and  because  He  has 
called  us  to  be,  not  servants  but  friends, 
He  will  bring  us  always  closer  to  Him- 
self. We  cannot  imagine  the  future; 
but  Him  we  know:  and  knowing  Him 
and  His  willingness  to  be  responsible 
for  it,  it  is  our  joy  to  leave  altogether 
to  his  keeping  our  immortality.  For  the 
joy  which  includes  and  explains  all 
other  joys  is  the  joy  of  knowing  Him. 
In  the  last  and  best  thought  concerning 
the  future  we  must  say  that  our  immor- 
tality is  God. 

THE  END 


CAMBRIDGE  .  MASSACHUSETTS 
U   .  S   .  A 


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